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Is the influence of privacy and security on online trust the same for all type of consumers?

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Abstract

This article analyzes the relationships among online trust and two of its most important antecedents, namely privacy and security, and explains how consumers’ characteristics (gender, age, education and extraversion), moderate the influence of both privacy and security in online trust. This study expands previous literature by identifying the conditions under which perceived privacy and security are likely to have the greatest positive effects on consumer trust in the online retailer. Based on data from 398 online consumers, the results revealed that the influence of both privacy and security on online trust was stronger for male, younger, more educated, and less extraverted consumers. Implications for theory and management are discussed.

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Notes

  1. Our RMSEA values (0.07 and 0.08 for the CFA and the structural model respectively) do not represent a close fit, yet they are within the reasonable fit interval (Browne and Cudeck 1993).

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank the editor and the two reviewers for their helpful comments. This research was supported by the grant ECO2012-35766 from the Spanish Ministry of Economics and Competitiveness and by the Fundación Séneca-Agencia de Ciencia y Tecnología de la Región de Murcia (Spain), under the II PCTRM 2007-2010. Authors also thank the support provided by Fundación Cajamurcia.

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Correspondence to Sergio Román.

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Table 4 A summary of prior empirical studies examining privacy and/or security as antecedents of online trust which have included moderating effects

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P. Riquelme, I., Román, S. Is the influence of privacy and security on online trust the same for all type of consumers?. Electron Markets 24, 135–149 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12525-013-0145-3

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