A framework for antecedents of trust in social commerce

Abstract

Trust is essential in social commerce environment, where consumers rely on feedback and advice that they collect from social platforms. Despite the importance of trust in virtual environments, there are a limited number of studies in this field. Research need to identify the main drivers that establish trust in social commerce domain. To this end, this study reviewed the literature related to trust in social commerce environment and proposed a framework for the antecedents of trust in social commerce. The proposed framework suggests two main components: social networking site and social company. The results supported nine hypotheses out of ten excluding the relationship between perceived-ease-of-use (PEOU) and content quality. Word-of-mouth, communication, perceived ability, after sale service, trust in transaction, and perceived usefulness were found as key factors that significantly impacted trust in social commerce. The model explained 33.2% of the variance in trust in social commerce.