Building Online Trust in a Culture of Confucianism

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.