Privacy concerns can greatly hinder consumers’ intentions to interact with a website. The success of a website therefore depends on its ability to improve consumers’ perceptions of privacy assurance. Seals and assurance statements are mechanisms often used to increase this assurance; however,...

Trust and distrust are both considered to be crucial in online truster-trustee relationships. Although some research has proposed that trust and distrust are distinct, other research continues to hold that they are merely opposite ends of the same continuum. Given this debate, it is important to...

Trust is a crucial factor in e-commerce. However, consumers are less likely to trust unknown websites. This study explores how less-familiar e-commerce websites can use branding alliances and website quality to increase the likelihood of initial consumer trust. We use the associative network...

Companies in platform-based business markets have widely embraced freemium business models where profit primarily depends on a minority of paying customers. However, the key challenge of these models is transitioning participants from free users to paying consumers. To encourage paid...