• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.15-22
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• 2015

Purpose - Transparency, seller reputation, and website security are considered to be important factors that influence online customer purchasing decisions in China. This paper empirically examines the relative influence of Taobao.com on customers' online purchasing decisions. Research design, data, and methodology - We perform structural equation analysis, with a sample of 306 observations. The data comes from consumers' real transaction experiences from a specific website. This gives the results of our study more generalizability than studies using subjects who are not asked to engage in real transactions. Results - The results of this study reveal that perceived security and perceived reputation are critical factors affecting consumer trust and perceived transparency is most closely associated with purchase intention. Conclusions - The findings suggest that perceived transparency plays a significant role in increasing online consumer's purchase intention. The knowledge of the relative impacts of these factors and their roles in the customer transaction experience will be useful in developing customized sales strategies. The results of this study reveal that perceived transparency exerts a stronger effect than perceived reputation on consumer purchase intentions.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.45 no.4
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• pp.612-629
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• 2021

This research started from hypothesizing that people hesitate to use a fashion sharing economy service due to the consumers' concerns or fears about contagion. The study explores how backstage information can affect consumers' responses to this service, especially their perceived risk and transparency. An online experiment was conducted to test the research questions through Amazon MTurk. The data of 351 participants in total were analyzed. The results show that backstage information, presenting hidden information with images of various product journeys, from packaging to return and laundry, had a positive effect on transparency as well as perceived risk. Both transparency and perceived risk positively affected the service's perceived honesty, and honesty also positively affected consumer engagement. Through the findings that providing backstage information had a positive effect on perceived risk, but the risk had a positive effect on perceived honesty, we can expect the reaction to the information itself to possibly be negative. However, consumers can consider the service as honest at least, which opens the possibility of expecting positive consumer attitudes or responses in a market in the near future.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.95-106
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• 2024

Purpose: This study investigates the complex dynamics of consumer behavior in Vietnamese banking omnichannel environments, focusing on the roles of service consistency, service transparency, flow, perceived privacy risk, and loyalty intention. Research design, data and methodology: Using a sample of 422 Vietnamese bank customers, data analysis revealed significant relationships among the variables under investigation. Results: Firstly, service consistency was found to positively influence flow experiences and negatively impact perceived privacy risk, highlighting the importance of uniform service quality across channels in enhancing consumer engagement while mitigating privacy concerns. Similarly, service transparency was positively associated with flow experiences and negatively associated with perceived privacy risk, underscoring the importance of transparent information dissemination in fostering immersive consumer experiences while alleviating privacy apprehensions. Furthermore, both flow experiences and perceived privacy risk significantly influenced loyalty intentions, indicating the pivotal roles of engaging experiences and data security in driving consumer loyalty. Additionally, mediated relationships were observed, demonstrating the interplay between service consistency, service transparency, flow, perceived privacy risk, and loyalty intention in shaping consumer behavior in omnichannel contexts. Conclusions: These findings provide valuable insights for retailers and marketers seeking to optimize consumer experiences and cultivate loyalty in omnichannel environments by prioritizing consistency, transparency, and data privacy protection.

• Informatization Policy
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.68-85
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• 2010

This study extends the privacy calculus model to investigate the role of information transparency in influencing individual decision making on information disclosure. The proposed model integrates perceived usefulness and ease of use as benefit-side factors and information privacy risk as a risk-side factor accompanying information disclosure, and theorizes the effects of information transparency on the factors. The research model was tested using data gathered from 163 respondents through an online survey method. Results suggest that users'perception of information transparency not only increases the perceived benefits from the online site but also mitigates the risk related with information disclosure, resulting in higher intention to provide personal information to the site. Further, we find that online firms may improve users' perception of information transparency by providing explanation on why particular personal information is required and how it will be used.

• Asian Journal for Public Opinion Research
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.351-376
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• 2020

A low level of transparency and trust in the release of government information during the COVID-19 pandemic could decrease the chance of success in handling the coronavirus outbreak. This worldwide pandemic has damaged not only human health but also created an economic and social crisis. Indonesia is no exception. Unfortunately, an analysis of a mixed-method survey of 500 participants found that public perception of transparency in the government's release of COVID-19 information is still at a low level. This perceived low level of transparency generates minimum trust in the information. Only 8% of participants trust the government's information regarding the virus. Even though the Indonesian government launched an official website, www.covid19.go.id, which is intended as a primary source of valid information about COVID-19 in Indonesia, most survey participants had never used the website. However, contrary to the low levels of perceived transparency and trust, most participants said that the messages from the government are clear and easy to understand. This contradiction resulted from skepticism toward the government. Therefore, this research presents a better understanding of how the level of transparency and trust is also related to the level of skepticism of the government.

• Information Systems Review
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.45-68
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• 2013

Despite improved technologies, procedures, and regulations, consumers are still uncertain about purchasing online. The objective of this study is to understand uncertainty factors in online shopping and their relationships with the consumers' intention to purchase. For this objective we derived seller anonymity, lack of product transparency, and lack of process transparency as uncertainty factors from previous researches which may affect consumers' perceived uncertainty on online shopping. Then, a causal model was developed to conceptualize the relationships between these uncertainty factors as antecedent variables and consumer's intention to purchase as consequent variable with perceived uncertainty as an intermediary variable. Purchase involvement was used as a moderating variable on the relationship between perceived uncertainty and the intention to purchase online. The model was tested empirically to find meaningful relationships among these variables. The findings indicate that all antecedent variables affect perceived uncertainty significantly and perceived uncertainty negatively affects consumers' intention to purchase. Moreover, the results of analysis show purchase involvement has a significant moderating effect on the relationship between perceived uncertainty and intention to purchase online.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.1-11
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• 2022

Purpose: This study aims at understanding the impacts of three omnichannel attributes (channel transparency, channel uniformity, channel convenience) and four customer perceptions (perceived innovativeness, perceived personalization, perceived risk, perceived credibility) on customer experience and channel selection decision. Research design and methodology: A quantitative online survey with 356 shoppers was executed. The partial least squares linear structural model (PLS-SEM) and Smart PLS were adopted to analyze the collected data and test the proposed hypotheses. Results: The research findings indicate four dominant results: (i) The customers' channel selection is directly determined by customer experience; perceived innovativeness; perceived personalization; perceived risk; and perceived credibility; and (ii) among these, the perceived risk shows negative impact on the customer's experience and customers' channel selection whereas others reveal the positive status; (iii) The customer experience represents the most decisive impact on the channel selection, then perceived personalization, perceived credibility, perceived innovativeness, and perceived risk. (iv) Three proposed channel attributes (transparency, uniformity, convenience) significantly influence the overall customer experience. Conclusions: This research adds to the body of knowledge in omnichannel retailing, customer experience, and customer channel selection. Furthermore, this research provides omnichannel retailers with practical implications for improving customer channel selection.

• The Journal of Society for e-Business Studies
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.279-299
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• 2013

The problem of choosing the right product that will best fit a consumer's taste and preferences extends to the field of electronic commerce. However, e-commerce has been able to create a technological proxy for the social filtering process, known as online recommender systems (RSs). RSs aid users in filtering products and decisions on matters relating to personal taste. RSs have the potential to support and improve the quality of the decisions consumers make when searching for and selecting products and services online. However, most previous research on RSs has focused on the accuracy of the algorithms, with little emphasis on user interface and perspectives. This study identified transparency and feedback as possible ways to effectively evaluate RSs from the user's perspective. Thus, this research focused on examining and identifying the roles of transparency and feedback in recommender systems and how they affect users' attitudes toward the system. Results of the study showed that both transparency and feedback positively and significantly affected perceived trust, perceived value of the process, and perceived enjoyment. Furthermore, we found that perceived trust, perceived value of the process, and perceived enjoyment positively and directly affected users' intentions to use/reuse a recommender system.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.44 no.3
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• pp.385-399
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• 2020

Corporate social responsibility is a consistently discussed theme in many industries. Most corporations engage in CSR activities and now inform consumers in detail on what they have been doing for society. It has become a critical tool of consumer communication; however, little is known regarding the role of information transparency in the context of the fashion industry. This study discusses information transparency of fashion corporations which means revealing information regarding cost and garment making processes. The research proved that the higher consumers perceive a fashion brand's CSR performance (CSP), the more they think the provided CSR information is substantial; consequently, there is a favorable evaluation of the brand. The result provides insight regarding the relationship between CSP perception, perceived information substantiality, and brand evaluation. There was a significant partial mediation effect of perceived information substantiality. Moreover, the moderated mediation effect of information transparency appeared significant on the impact of CSP perception for brand evaluation via CSR information substantiality. The process model 7 was used as an analytical tool. The results of this study implies the importance of information transparency in the fashion industry context in the digital era.

• The Journal of Information Systems
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.119-145
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• 2014

Under the premise that information privacy concerns can atrophy e-commerce by causing particular behaviors of Internet users, this study focused on exploring the causes of information privacy concerns, the related information privacy protective responses of Internet users, and measures for alleviating the information privacy concerns. This study is based on the 'principal-agent theory,' and established the following as factors that cause information privacy concerns of Internet users: perceived information non-transparency; perceived action uncertainty. Also, the information privacy concerns caused by the factors were established as the cause of information privacy protective responses of Internet users. Also, the concept of 'signaling' and 'incentive,' which were presented to solve the adverse selection and moral hazard issue in the host-agent theory, was introduced to establish the following as factors that alleviate information privacy concerns: trust; informativeness. Those factors were included in the research model to conduct an empirical analysis. The analysis has revealed that both the perceived information non-transparency (p<0.01) and perceived action uncertainty (p<0.01) as to websites had a significant impact on information privacy concerns. Also, information privacy concerns of Internet users (p<0.01) had a significant impact on their information privacy protective responses who strive to protect their personal information. In addition, when trust and informativeness, which were established as factors that can alleviate information privacy concerns, were empirically analyzed, trust and informativeness had the effect of alleviating information privacy concerns. Based on the findings, the following was confirmed: Boosting the trust of Internet users in websites and offering useful information related to personal data can play a key role in alleviating the information privacy concerns of Internet users.