Initial Online Trust Building: A Social Learning Theory Perspective

With the rapid expansion of e-commerce, trust has become a central research topic in online environment for its key role in affecting e-commerce success. Our study focuses on the initial online trust building for brick-and-click companies. Building upon social learning theory, we propose a framework to examine the learning processes and important antecedents to online trust building. To demonstrate the utility of the framework, we apply it to the initial online trust building for brick-and-click firms. Our results suggest that the social learning theory is a viable tool to understand customer’s trust building process. Based on the effective learning processes identified for trust building, firms can allocate their resource accordingly.