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D. Offline Trust and Structural Assurance
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| bet | 8/17 | | Sana | 24.03.2017 | | Hajmi | 0.62 Mb. | | #1948 |
D. Offline Trust and Structural Assurance
While Internet customers can access products and services efficiently regardless of location or time, they have limited means of assessing the characteristics of the products and services they purchase [22, 49, 87]. They can only view products on-screen. This is one reason many customers perceive transaction risk when shopping on the Internet [86]. Risky situations result in customer uncertainty: unexpected worries, concerns and psychological misgivings at the time of purchase or adoption [7, 26, 100].
Structural assurance, a form of institution-based trust particularly key for minimizing perceived risk in online transactions, means consumer projections of success due to such safety nets as legal recourse, guarantees and regulations that exist in the context [23, 71]. Trust in the e-vendor results from the security customers feel due to these safety nets [34].
Online banking requires a high level of security, since private information must be completely protected against computer hacking attacks or technical failures that would damage customers’ financial status. Online banking transactions should therefore result in positive consequences with regard to the amount of money and financial conditions involved. In this study, structural assurance focuses on situations in which customers contemplate online banking transactions in a known service class. If a consumer trusts the offline business, this trust should transfer to beliefs that the firm’s online system is safe and secure, i.e., to structural assurance beliefs. If an offline bank is trusted, it should also be perceived as having adequate online safeguards. This is as natural as believing a trusted retail store will back its product guarantees in a new line of business, just as it already does for existing lines of business.
H2: Trust in an offline bank positively influences structural assurance of the bank’s online system.
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