Building Online Trust in a Culture of Confucianism: The Impact of Process Flexibility and Perceived Control

ACM Transactions on Management Information Systems. 5(1): 2014. 1-23

23 Pages Posted: 15 May 2015 Last revised: 18 Oct 2016

See all articles by Lihua Huang

Lihua Huang

Fudan University

Sulin Ba

University of Connecticut School of Business

Xianghua Lu

Fudan University - School of Management

Date Written: June 13, 2014

Abstract

The success of e-commerce companies in a Confucian cultural context takes more than advanced IT and process design that have proven successful in Western countries. The example of eBay’s failure in China indicates that earning the trust of Chinese consumers is essential to success, yet the process of building that trust requires something different from that in the Western culture. This article attempts to build a theoretical model to explore the relationship between the Confucian culture and online trust. We introduce two new constructs, namely process flexibility and perceived control, as particularly important factors in online trust formation in the Chinese cultural context. A survey was conducted to test the proposed theoretical model. This study offers a new explanation for online trust formation in the Confucian context. The findings of this article can provide guidance for companies hoping to successfully navigate the Chinese online market in the future.

Keywords: e-commerce, culture, trust, Confucianism, process flexibility, perceived control, online market

Suggested Citation

Huang, Lihua and Ba, Sulin and Lu, Xianghua, Building Online Trust in a Culture of Confucianism: The Impact of Process Flexibility and Perceived Control (June 13, 2014). ACM Transactions on Management Information Systems. 5(1): 2014. 1-23, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2606001

Lihua Huang

Fudan University ( email )

670 Handan Road
Shanghai
China

Sulin Ba (Contact Author)

University of Connecticut School of Business ( email )

368 Fairfield Road
Storrs, CT 06269-2041
United States

Xianghua Lu

Fudan University - School of Management ( email )

670 Handan Road
Shanghai
China

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