Haengnam Sung

The Influences of Social Network and Website Characteristics on Trust to Enhance Purchase Intention

The objective of this study is to investigate how social network and website characteristics play a significant role in vitalizing social shopping, as well as to examine how two types of trust affect purchase intention from the website. Structural equation modeling(SEM) of AMOS 18.0 was used to test the hypotheses. The findings demonstrated that perceived ability and perceived benevolence of social network characteristics and trust in a website are positively associated with trust in product recommendation. Second, Received (June 27, 2017), Review Result (July 11, 2017) Accepted (July 18, 2017), Published (September 30, 2017) (First Author) Lecturer, Dept. of Management Information Systems, Gyeongsang National University, 501 Jinju-Daero, Jinju 52828, South Korea email: haena@gnu.ac.kr (Corresponding Author) Assistant Professor, Dept. of E-business, Gyeongnam National University of Science Technology, 33 Dongjin-Ro, Jinju 52725, South Korea email: sji@gntech.ac.kr *이 논문은 2017년도 경남과학기술대학교 대학회계 연구비 지원에 의하여 연구되었음. The Influences of Social Network and Website Characteristics on Trust to Enhance Purchase Intention Copyright c 2017 HSST 98 perceived website reputation and perceived website quality of website characteristics are positively associated with trust in a website. Third, trust in product recommendation is positively associated with intention to purchase products and intention to purchase products from the website. Fourth, intention to purchase products is positively associated with intention to purchase products from the website. However, trust in a website is not associated with intention to purchase products from the website. Thus, it is identified that trust in product recommendation is more significant factor to improve intention to purchase products and intention to purchase products from the website. Some implications are derived from the analysis results and research limitations are also provided with the conclusions.

The Antecedent and Consequence of Trust in Social Shopping

The continuous fever of social media shows that social shopping signifies the main future e-commerce opportunities. For academics, it would be one of the most important and stimulating research topics, which creates values of great theoretical and practical implication. This paper aims to reveal the importance of understanding trust in a website and trust in product recommendation to enhance purchase intention through social network service (perceived ability, perceived integrity, and perceived critical mass). The research model is empirically tested with survey data from 170 respondents who have experienced social shopping in South Korea. The findings indicated that social network service can be conceptualized as a composite of three dimensions (perceived ability, perceived integrity, and perceived critical mass) and perceived critical mass is the most important factor for social network service. Second, social network service has positive influences on trust in a website, trust in product recommendation, and purchase intention. Interestingly, social network service has the most effect on trust in a website and the least effect on trust in product recommendation. Third, trust in a website has positive influences on trust in product recommendation and purchase intention. Fourth, trust in product recommendation has a positive influence on purchase intention. While social network service has the most impact on purchase intention of social shopping, trust in a website has the least impact on it. Thus, the research model demonstrated the importance of social network service to purchase intention. Social shopping websites should focus on establishing the higher level of social network service that can provide the useful information about product recommendations and effective website designs that customers trust.