Search

While some online social networking (OSN) websites, such as Facebook, have reported sustained growth, others, such as Bebo, have not. This study investigates the factors that influence users' intentions to continue using these websites. We adapt the theory of reasoned action and develop a model depicting how trusting beliefs, habit, attitude, and subjective norm lead to continuance intention. We propose that trusting beliefs and habit will have differential effects depending on the levels of privacy restrictiveness and site experience. An analysis of data collected from Facebook users shows that the effects of trusting beliefs on continuance intention diminish as OSN users become more experienced, yet, do not diminish when users set privacy controls high. The latter finding contradicts theory positing control and trusting beliefs are substitutes. The finding that the trusting belief-continuance intention relationship is not significant when experience is high demonstrates that trusting beliefs and experience interact. We also show that habit is a stronger predictor when users restrict their personal information. However, contrary to predictions, habit shapes intention among users with both high and low experience. These findings explain how habit and trusting beliefs predict continuance intention in the new OSN environment and have both practical and research implications.

Researchers have found computer self-efficacy (CSE) to be important to technology adoption. Past research has treated CSE as a unitary concept. This paper proposes that CSE has two dimensions-internal and external. The idea that CSE has internal and external dimensions is based on attribution theory, which identifies the human tendency to attribute events to causes that are either internal or external to the self. The internal CSE dimension focuses on how individuals perceive their capacity to use computers independently (i.e., without help). The external CSE dimension focuses on how individuals perceive their ability to use computers with human assistance and other forms of external support. Using items drawn from the Compeau and Higginspsila CSE instrument, this paper examines each dimension's relationship to computer anxiety and perceived ease-of-use of information technology. The paper also reports on six studies that examine this proposal, and contributes to the literature by identifying two distinct CSE dimensions, developing theory-driven explanations for their relationships to constructs within the CSE's nomological network, and empirically establishing that they have distinct effects. Implications for research and practice are presented.

Research has provided little evidence that trust in an offline bank can encourage adoption of the bank's online business. Yet, more and more brick-and-mortar banks and other businesses are investing in online Web sites that supposedly ldquoleveragerdquo positive consumer impressions of their offline business. The main purpose of this study is to test empirically whether or not trust in an offline bank transfers (i.e., influences) perceptions about that company's online bank. In order to do so, we analyze how trust in an offline bank influences four perceptions about its online banking counterpart (flow, structural assurance, perceived Web site satisfaction, and perceived extent of future use). The study tests the hypothesized influence of offline trust using a sample of 199 South Korean consumers responding about offline and online banking. Results show that offline trust influences all four online perceptions, just as proposed. These effects were especially prominent among respondents new to online banking. Thus, offline-to-online transfer should be considered when designing strategies for online channels. This study fills a key research gap by examining transfer of cognitive beliefs from an offline to an online setting.

A typology of trust concepts would enable researchers to compare results and communicate results more clearly. The typology would be especially valuable if the types of trust are shown to relate to each other. This paper justifies such an interdisciplinary typology and relates the trust constructs to e-commerce actions. It defines both conceptual level and operational level trust constructs. The conceptual level constructs consist of disposition to trust (from psychology), institution-based trust (from sociology), and trusting beliefs and trusting intentions (from social psychology). Each construct is further decomposed into two to four measurable subconstructs. Web vendor interventions designed to encourage customers to purchase goods/services or to share personal information with the vendor are posited to affect these behaviors by influencing customer trusting beliefs and trusting intentions in the vendor.