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Formation of Consumers’ Perceived Information Security: Examining the Transfer of Trust in Online Retailers

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Abstract

Set in the backdrop of ever escalating data breach incidents, this paper investigates the seeming paradox between elevated consumer information security concerns reported in surveys and lax consumer security behavior exhibited online. Results from our experiment show that when asked about their information security perceptions, consumers evaluate the issue of information security based on the elaboration likelihood model. As a result, they express concerns. However, when consumers are actually shopping online, they do not separately evaluate the issue of information security. Instead, they mostly transfer their trust in an online retailer to the trusting belief that their information will be secure. This is one of the main reasons why, counter to their elevated security concerns expressed in surveys, consumers engage in lax security practices when they conduct business online.

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Acknowledgements

This paper is an extended version of a short paper presented at the 2018 International Conference on Information Systems, San Francisco, USA and published in its proceedings. We are grateful to the two anonymous reviewers, the AE, and the CE for their valuable comments and suggestions, which helped us improve this paper greatly.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Colorado Denver, 1475 Lawrence St., Denver, CO, 80202, USA

    Henner Mohr & Zhiping Walter

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  1. Henner Mohr
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Correspondence to Zhiping Walter.

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Appendices

Appendix A. Screenshots of Research eCommerce Website

Fig. 4
figure 4

Screenshot of the initial participant landing page for shopsabbas.com

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Fig. 5
figure 5

Screenshot of a product search page

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Fig. 6
figure 6

Product information page after a product was selected

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Fig. 7
figure 7

An examples screenshot of the product viewer. A participant could move their mouse over the images on the left side and see an enlarged version on the right

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Appendix B. Measurement Items

Trust in the Retailer: second-order formative construct with two dimensions: Perceived Trustworthiness and Perceived Expertise.

Perceived Trustworthiness: 7-point semantic differential scale using the following 8 pairs of adjectives.

dishonest

honest

Trustworthy

Untrustworthy

Bad

Good

Unreliable

Reliable

Disreputable

Reputable

Dependable

Undependable

Irresponsible

Responsible

Consistent

Inconsistent

Perceived Expertise: 7-point semantic differential scale using the following 7 pairs of adjectives:

Inexperienced

Experienced

Unskilled

Skilled

Informed

Uninformed

Incompetent

Competent

Knowledgeable

Ignorant

Ineffective

Effective

Weak

Strong

Website Sophistication: 7-point Likert scale anchored on strongly disagree, disagree, somewhat disagree, neither agree nor disagree, somewhat agree, agree, and strongly agree.

  1. 1.

    The shopsabbas.com website looks attractive.

  2. 2.

    The shopsabbas.com website looks organized.

  3. 3.

    The shopsabbas.com website uses fonts properly.

  4. 4.

    The shopsabbas.com website looks color properly.

  5. 5.

    The content of shopsabbas.com website is clear.

  6. 6.

    The content of shopsabbas.com website is current.

  7. 7.

    The content of shopsabbas.com website is concise.

  8. 8.

    The content of shopsabbas.com website is accurate.

Perceived Information security: 7-point Likert scale anchored on strongly disagree, disagree, somewhat disagree, neither agree nor disagree, somewhat agree, agree, and strongly agree.

  1. 1.

    I would feel secure sending sensitive information across shopsabbas.com.

  2. 2.

    I would feel totally safe providing sensitive information about myself on shopsabbas.com.

  3. 3.

    Shopsabbas.com is a secure website for sending sensitive information.

  4. 4.

    Overall, shopsabbas.com is a safe place to transmit my sensitive information.

Intention to Purchase: 7-point Likert scale anchored on strongly disagree, disagree, somewhat disagree, neither agree nor disagree, somewhat agree, agree, and strongly agree.

  1. 1.

    I would use shopsabbas.com for purchasing a product.

  2. 2.

    Using shopsabbas.com for purchasing a product is something I would do.

  3. 3.

    I could see myself using shopsabbas.com to buy a product.

  4. 4.

    It is likely that I will transact with shopsabbas.com website in the future.

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Mohr, H., Walter, Z. Formation of Consumers’ Perceived Information Security: Examining the Transfer of Trust in Online Retailers. Inf Syst Front 21, 1231–1250 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10796-019-09961-7

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