Consumer trust in an internet store: A cross-cultural validation

Many have speculated that trust plays a critical role in stimulating consumer purchases over the Internet. Most of the speculations have rallied around U.S. consumers purchasing from U.S. - based online merchants. The global nature of the Internet raises questions about the robustness of trust effects across cultures. Culture may also affect the antecedents of consumer trust; that is, consumers in different cultures might have differing expectations of what makes a web merchant trustworthy. Here we report on a cross-cultural validation of an Internet consumer trust model. The model examined both antecedents and consequences of consumer trust in a Web merchant. The results provide tentative support for the generalizability of the model.