Introduction

Nowadays, internet is becoming one of the main marketing platforms as a result of the development of technology. However it is a cheaper medium for organization to promote, sell and advertise their products or services, not every company is successful at e-marketing. One of the main reasons is about“trust and trustworthiness ”. Even though the concept between trust and trustworthiness is really similar and notional, it plays an important role of e-marketing.In this essay, will represent the differences and relationships between trust and trustworthiness. Moreover, here will include some examples that explain the effects and outcomes of applying trust and trustworthiness.

Literature Review

“Trust as the willingness of a party to be vulnerable to the actions of another party, based on the expectation that the other will perform a particular action important to trustor, irrespective of the ability to monitor or control that other party.” (Mayer et at, 1995, 712) Broadly speaking, trust is one person want to be vulnerable to the action of another party (trustee), even when trustee cannot be controlled or monitored. For example, customers want to save their money (vulnerable) in a bank (trustee) because of trust. According to a study of Barber (1983), trust has two critical components which are confident expectation and willingness to be vulnerable. Individuals trust a person or an organization as they have expectation of the persistence and fulfillment of moral social order, expectation of technically competent role performance as well as expectation that partners in interaction will carry out their fiduciary obligations and responsibilities. (Lewis and Weigert, 1985) Trust is an expectation set within particular contextual parameters and constraints. In fact, trust is not easy to be built especially though Internet. (Cheng and Lee, 2006) The perceived risk might be higher as the time lapse between product order and product delivery, consumer cannot physically check the quality of product before placing an order and consumers cannot fully monitor the safety and security of sending sensitive personal and financial information. Trust is very important to an organization that it could bring customers’ loyalty and brand value.

However, “trustworthiness perception is as an antecedent to trust” (Frazier et al, 2010) which are about people’s feeling before action or willingness of trust. The notion of interpersonal trust is built on the foundation of social exchanges that inform one’s perceptions of another’s trustworthiness. It could be individual to individual, consumer to organization and business to business. For e-marketing, therefore, the positive trustworthiness perception of individuals affects the outcomes of whether strong trust of an Internet organization or a person (trustee) was built. “Trustworthiness concerns the perceptions about a trustee’s characteristics that influence the extent to which a trustee make oneself vulnerable to the trustee.” (Frazier et al, 2010)Trustworthiness perceptions are crucial cognitive evaluations that individuals make in response to justice perceptions. Basically, trustworthiness will lead to trust. (Tomlinson and Mayer, 2009) According to the model of interpersonal trust (Mayer, Davis and Schoorman, 1995), trustworthiness is composed of three main components. They are ability, benevolence and integrity. These three- characteristics of the party might dominate the individuals’ assessment of an organization’s (trustee’s) trustworthiness.

(Figure: The model of interpersonal trust) (Mayer, Davis and Schoorman, 1995; Cheng and Lee, 2006)

Ability: The perceived skills, competencies and expertise that enable the trustee to be successful within a particular domain of interest.

Benevolence: The trustor’s belief that the trustee has the trusor’s best interest in mind and cares about the trustor.

Integrity: The trustor’s perception that trustee adheres to a set of principles that the trustor finds acceptable.

Instead of these three factors, the security and privacy people perceived affect their evaluation of a party’s trustworthiness and the trust of the party. (Cheng and Lee, 2006) Most consumers avoid to buying things online because they are not sure whether the security of payment process or the privacy of their payment details are safety protected or not. To reduce anxiety, uncertainty associated with transaction among relative strangers, customers tend to trust large online company as they have great word-of-mouth, financial background and acceptable contract. Customers also believe they give them the best offer or interest.

An organization’s trustworthiness perceived by customers is significant in e-marketing. It could affect a company (like a website) successful or not. If outcomes are positives, prior beliefs about trustworthiness will be reinforced and trust will either be maintained or strengthened. It outcomes are negative, some combination of ability benevolence, integrity will be reevaluated and possibly scaled back, leading to a lowered level of trust. Some examples of successful e-companies and companies without strong trust would be showed below.

Examples for positive and negative

E-Bay is the worldwide largest e-commerce company which is a good example to explain how to successfully establish trustworthiness for consumers. First of all,how does eBay deliver perceived ability to customers? eBay was established in 1995. So far it is the international largest e-commerce site and the company's market value is nearly 10 billion U.S. dollars. A number of large sites and enterprises around the world have a cooperative relationship with eBay. Therefore, customers for the ability of the company will have a considerable credibility.

Secondly, how does eBay deliver perceived benevolence to customers? eBay has a wide range of goods. Consumers can optionally select and purchase commodities on eBay. In addition, eBay has two most important systems which are text comments system and the reputation system. The two systems not only have a communication platform to the buyer and the seller, but also makes the transaction more ease and unaffected to the buyer and the seller. Then more customers join eBay, as consumers felt the eBay of human services.

Thirdly, how does eBay deliver perceived integrity to customers? Similarly, text comments system and the reputation system to the buyer and the seller offer the possibility of reference to the transaction. text comments that provide evidence of a seller’s responsibility or credibility while comments that provide evidence of irresponsibility or poor credibility serve. (Utz Sonja, Matzat Uwe, Snijders Chris, 2009)

More over, eBay uses PayPal for online payments. Now, PayPal has supported more than 57 regions, the number of more than 100 million registered users (February 14, 2006). PayPal is currently the worldwild largest online payment provider. Finally, eBay was nominated by the reliable privacy prise in 2009 . Due to eBay had built comprehensive privacy protection policies that achieves the positive corporate image. Consequently, it is really rational that why eBay is successful in the category of e-marketing.

On the other hand, there is an example which outcomes are negative. Amazon, one of the largest online retailers. Firstly, Amazon cannot supply perceived ability to consumers in some areas. For example,in China, there are some other online retailers such as Taobao, QQ Tencent and Eachent. Although these retailers have not the history as long as Amazon, they have better trust concept for the consumers than Amazon. Thus in China ,Amazon should let consumers think it can supply the services well as mainland online retailers.

Secondly, why some consumers can not feel perceived benevolence from Amazon in China? Like other online retailers, Amazon has communication with customers termly. However, it is not enough. Amazon just applied their previous experience into China market without building perceived benevolence. Consequently, Amazon still can not develop as strong as before in the china market.

Because of these two points, Amazon cannot develop rapidly in China. So if an organization wants to make consumers feel its trustworthiness then trust it, it must do very well on these five aspects – perceived ability, perceived benevolence, perceived integrity, perceived security and perceived privacy.

Conclusion

To sum up, the concept of “trust and trustworthiness”is reasonably important for e-companies and e-marketing. However “trust and trustworthiness”is very notional image, it interprets the further relationship between consumers and organisations. For instance, the benefits of this concept are not practical existing such as brand value,brand loyalty and credibility. Nevertheless, those benefits could maintain the long term relationship between consumer and organisation. Consequently, “trust and trustworthiness”in the category of e-marketing is the most significant issue that must be concerned immediately. Because the basic element of e-marketing is credibility which is built by the conception of trust. Furthermore, if trust and trustworthiness could be applied into a cycle system that might be much more effective for marketing,especially for e-marketing. For example, the concept of trustworthiness is offered invisibly by the seller, and it would result trust when the buyer receive, believe and purchase. Then the“trust”is built by the buyers who really buy the products or services. After that, the seller should reinforce the relation with buyer through trustworthiness. Finally, that might make a unbeatable and stable relationship between buyer and seller.

Reference

Barber,B (1983) The logic and linits of trust. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Cheng, M.K.C and Lee, K.O.M. (2006) “Understanding Consumer Trust in Internet Shopping: A Multidisciplinary Approach” Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 2006(February), 479-492

Frazier, M.L., Johnson, P.D., Gavin, M., Gooty, J. and Snow, B.D. (2010) “Organizational Justice, Trustworthiness, and Trust: A Multifoci Examination” Group & Organization Management, 35 (1),39-76

Lewis, J.D. and Weigert, A. (1985) Trust as a social reality. Social Forces, 63 (4), 967-985

Mayer, R.C., Davis, J.H. and Schoorman, F.D. (1995) An integrative model of organizational trust. Academy of Management Review, 20, 709-734

Tomlinson, E.C. and Mayer, R.C. (2009) “The role of Causal Attribution Dimensions in Trust Repair” Academy of Management Review, 34 (1), 85-104

On-line Reputation Systems: The Effects of Feedback Comments and Reactions on Building and Rebuilding Trust in On-line Auctions, Utz, Sonja; Matzat, Uwe; Snijders, Chris. International Journal of Electronic Commerce, Spring2009, Vol. 13 Issue 3, p95-118

Introduction

Nowadays, internet is becoming one of the main marketing platforms as a result of the development of technology. However it is a cheaper medium for organization to promote, sell and advertise their products or services, not every company is successful at e-marketing. One of the main reasons is about“trust and trustworthiness ”. Even though the concept between trust and trustworthiness is really similar and notional, it plays an important role of e-marketing.In this essay, will represent the differences and relationships between trust and trustworthiness. Moreover, here will include some examples that explain the effects and outcomes of applying trust and trustworthiness.

Literature Review

“Trust as the willingness of a party to be vulnerable to the actions of another party, based on the expectation that the other will perform a particular action important to trustor, irrespective of the ability to monitor or control that other party.” (Mayer et at, 1995, 712) Broadly speaking, trust is one person want to be vulnerable to the action of another party (trustee), even when trustee cannot be controlled or monitored. For example, customers want to save their money (vulnerable) in a bank (trustee) because of trust. According to a study of Barber (1983), trust has two critical components which are confident expectation and willingness to be vulnerable. Individuals trust a person or an organization as they have expectation of the persistence and fulfillment of moral social order, expectation of technically competent role performance as well as expectation that partners in interaction will carry out their fiduciary obligations and responsibilities. (Lewis and Weigert, 1985) Trust is an expectation set within particular contextual parameters and constraints. In fact, trust is not easy to be built especially though Internet. (Cheng and Lee, 2006) The perceived risk might be higher as the time lapse between product order and product delivery, consumer cannot physically check the quality of product before placing an order and consumers cannot fully monitor the safety and security of sending sensitive personal and financial information. Trust is very important to an organization that it could bring customers’ loyalty and brand value.

However, “trustworthiness perception is as an antecedent to trust” (Frazier et al, 2010) which are about people’s feeling before action or willingness of trust. The notion of interpersonal trust is built on the foundation of social exchanges that inform one’s perceptions of another’s trustworthiness. It could be individual to individual, consumer to organization and business to business. For e-marketing, therefore, the positive trustworthiness perception of individuals affects the outcomes of whether strong trust of an Internet organization or a person (trustee) was built. “Trustworthiness concerns the perceptions about a trustee’s characteristics that influence the extent to which a trustee make oneself vulnerable to the trustee.” (Frazier et al, 2010)Trustworthiness perceptions are crucial cognitive evaluations that individuals make in response to justice perceptions. Basically, trustworthiness will lead to trust. (Tomlinson and Mayer, 2009) According to the model of interpersonal trust (Mayer, Davis and Schoorman, 1995), trustworthiness is composed of three main components. They are ability, benevolence and integrity. These three- characteristics of the party might dominate the individuals’ assessment of an organization’s (trustee’s) trustworthiness.


(Figure: The model of interpersonal trust) (Mayer, Davis and Schoorman, 1995; Cheng and Lee, 2006)
Ability: The perceived skills, competencies and expertise that enable the trustee to be successful within a particular domain of interest.
Benevolence: The trustor’s belief that the trustee has the trusor’s best interest in mind and cares about the trustor.
Integrity: The trustor’s perception that trustee adheres to a set of principles that the trustor finds acceptable.
Instead of these three factors, the security and privacy people perceived affect their evaluation of a party’s trustworthiness and the trust of the party. (Cheng and Lee, 2006) Most consumers avoid to buying things online because they are not sure whether the security of payment process or the privacy of their payment details are safety protected or not. To reduce anxiety, uncertainty associated with transaction among relative strangers, customers tend to trust large online company as they have great word-of-mouth, financial background and acceptable contract. Customers also believe they give them the best offer or interest.

An organization’s trustworthiness perceived by customers is significant in e-marketing. It could affect a company (like a website) successful or not. If outcomes are positives, prior beliefs about trustworthiness will be reinforced and trust will either be maintained or strengthened. It outcomes are negative, some combination of ability benevolence, integrity will be reevaluated and possibly scaled back, leading to a lowered level of trust. Some examples of successful e-companies and companies without strong trust would be showed below.

Examples for positive and negative

E-Bay is the worldwide largest e-commerce company which is a good example to explain how to successfully establish trustworthiness for consumers. First of all,how does eBay deliver perceived ability to customers? eBay was established in 1995. So far it is the international largest e-commerce site and the company's market value is nearly 10 billion U.S. dollars. A number of large sites and enterprises around the world have a cooperative relationship with eBay. Therefore, customers for the ability of the company will have a considerable credibility.

Secondly, how does eBay deliver perceived benevolence to customers? eBay has a wide range of goods. Consumers can optionally select and purchase commodities on eBay. In addition, eBay has two most important systems which are text comments system and the reputation system. The two systems not only have a communication platform to the buyer and the seller, but also makes the transaction more ease and unaffected to the buyer and the seller. Then more customers join eBay, as consumers felt the eBay of human services.

Thirdly, how does eBay deliver perceived integrity to customers? Similarly, text comments system and the reputation system to the buyer and the seller offer the possibility of reference to the transaction. text comments that provide evidence of a seller’s responsibility or credibility while comments that provide evidence of irresponsibility or poor credibility serve. (Utz Sonja, Matzat Uwe, Snijders Chris, 2009)

More over, eBay uses PayPal for online payments. Now, PayPal has supported more than 57 regions, the number of more than 100 million registered users (February 14, 2006). PayPal is currently the worldwild largest online payment provider. Finally, eBay was nominated by the reliable privacy prise in 2009 . Due to eBay had built comprehensive privacy protection policies that achieves the positive corporate image. Consequently, it is really rational that why eBay is successful in the category of e-marketing.

On the other hand, there is an example which outcomes are negative. Amazon, one of the largest online retailers. Firstly, Amazon cannot supply perceived ability to consumers in some areas. For example,in China, there are some other online retailers such as Taobao, QQ Tencent and Eachent. Although these retailers have not the history as long as Amazon, they have better trust concept for the consumers than Amazon. Thus in China ,Amazon should let consumers think it can supply the services well as mainland online retailers.

Secondly, why some consumers can not feel perceived benevolence from Amazon in China? Like other online retailers, Amazon has communication with customers termly. However, it is not enough. Amazon just applied their previous experience into China market without building perceived benevolence. Consequently, Amazon still can not develop as strong as before in the china market.

Because of these two points, Amazon cannot develop rapidly in China. So if an organization wants to make consumers feel its trustworthiness then trust it, it must do very well on these five aspects – perceived ability, perceived benevolence, perceived integrity, perceived security and perceived privacy.

Conclusion

To sum up, the concept of “trust and trustworthiness”is reasonably important for e-companies and e-marketing. However “trust and trustworthiness”is very notional image, it interprets the further relationship between consumers and organisations. For instance, the benefits of this concept are not practical existing such as brand value,brand loyalty and credibility. Nevertheless, those benefits could maintain the long term relationship between consumer and organisation. Consequently, “trust and trustworthiness”in the category of e-marketing is the most significant issue that must be concerned immediately. Because the basic element of e-marketing is credibility which is built by the conception of trust. Furthermore, if trust and trustworthiness could be applied into a cycle system that might be much more effective for marketing,especially for e-marketing. For example, the concept of trustworthiness is offered invisibly by the seller, and it would result trust when the buyer receive, believe and purchase. Then the“trust”is built by the buyers who really buy the products or services. After that, the seller should reinforce the relation with buyer through trustworthiness. Finally, that might make a unbeatable and stable relationship between buyer and seller.

Reference

Barber,B (1983) The logic and linits of trust. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Cheng, M.K.C and Lee, K.O.M. (2006) “Understanding Consumer Trust in Internet Shopping: A Multidisciplinary Approach” Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 2006(February), 479-492

Frazier, M.L., Johnson, P.D., Gavin, M., Gooty, J. and Snow, B.D. (2010) “Organizational Justice, Trustworthiness, and Trust: A Multifoci Examination” Group & Organization Management, 35 (1),39-76

Lewis, J.D. and Weigert, A. (1985) Trust as a social reality. Social Forces, 63 (4), 967-985

Mayer, R.C., Davis, J.H. and Schoorman, F.D. (1995) An integrative model of organizational trust. Academy of Management Review, 20, 709-734

Tomlinson, E.C. and Mayer, R.C. (2009) “The role of Causal Attribution Dimensions in Trust Repair” Academy of Management Review, 34 (1), 85-104

On-line Reputation Systems: The Effects of Feedback Comments and Reactions on Building and Rebuilding Trust in On-line Auctions, Utz, Sonja; Matzat, Uwe; Snijders, Chris. International Journal of Electronic Commerce, Spring2009, Vol. 13 Issue 3, p95-118

Introudction

Nowadays, internet has been growing for over twenty years and it leads human beings into the new age of life style and technology. People can have much more convenient instruments to maintain and support their daily life. For example, habitants can arrange their social life through the web, and which could solve distance and geographic problems. Nevertheless, there are many negative effects behind using internet popularly. For instance, people have less real relationships in the daily life. Especially for young generation, web is becoming the only one medium which they use to live in the real world. In this essay, the impact of virtual revolution would be evaluated and argued in two main areas which are the changes of human relationship and student thinking and learning.

The change of human relationship

Social network as a new type of information transfer and communication tools is influencing and changing the relationship between people and the world. As a communication platform between people, the network of a continuing communication of information is possible. It enhances the overall knowledge of human capabilities, the relationship among people and satisfies people‘s communication and understanding needs. Social network has become a major channel for people to obtain information. The world is getting smaller and smaller, such as Facebook to people communication provides an effective platform. The Facebook users can have more new friends through this website which can also promote relationship with their old friends. In other words, the network connects people very effectively.

Social network for mankind is a better understanding of themselves and the world in order to improve relationship between human and the world. Social network can be said to be an important way of ideological and political education. People visit these sites to participate in the activities of web site to help strengthen the moral consciousness and the status of the principal. Social network openness and convenience, the diversity and breadth of content is providing people with a vast space for learning so that it greatly broadens the means of people's quest for knowledge and also for people’s negative emotions release to provide a relatively relax environment. The establishment of online new human interpersonal approach and social relations for people provides a buffer space before they entering the real society. For young people social network is also providing a training ground which helps to promote the socialization of young people.

Although Internet brings many advantages to humans’ life, there are also some disadvantages which cannot be ignored. Firstly, when Internet improves the connection between people from different areas, the communication between them has been reduced much more. For example, in South Korea, because of its faster speed of Internet than any other areas else, most people spend more time on Internet than the others. Actually, it can make people connect friends or family much easier, but the traditional communication has become to disappear.

Communication with screen starts to replace communication face to face. Then human beings may lose much more valuable things. In the future, people may not know what the real relationship is. In South Korea, there are 210,000 people who will spend 18 hours on line each day. They have fell into Internet world instead of real world. In their eyes, they may not need real world any longer. Last year, there was a movie called Surrogates. In this movie, human beings use Internet to keep touch with others instead of the real communication skills. For a long time, people may not only lose real sensibility but also their soul.

Nowadays, more and more children touch Internet when they are very young. Then Internet will take their much time. The result of this is that communication between children and parents has been reduced much more. In fact, Internet has started to destroy people’s family. When the children grow up, parent-child relationship may be not clear. On the other hand, about the relation between strangers, there is a sample about restaurant in the video. The Facebook of the restaurant in the video has many followers. These Facebook members just have relationship with the writer of Facebook. They do not have real friendship with this restaurant. If this writer disappears, this relationship will disappear too.

Secondly, much negative knowledge has been shown when Internet supplies the information that people need. With popular of Internet, when people have some questions they may ask “friends” on line. But they may not find the right answers. Contrarily, wrong way or some dangerous things may be supplied to them. At that time, Internet will not give people useful information but negative help. So when people use Internet, they should know that Internet just a tool to help human. It is just a tool.

The change of student thinking and learning

Obviously, internet becomes a new media. People could access internet conveniently. They could download and upload anything everywhere. To compare the generation of using print media and printing press, creating and releasing information or knowledge on web are not only by professionals, but also by everyone who could access internet. The roles of ideas, knowledge and information are decentralized. According to the BBC program of “The virtual Revolution: Homo Interneticus”, Carr (2008) described this is information overload generation. New generation is growing with plenty of information in real-time society. Therefore, it is interesting to argue that how does the speedy evolution of internet affect student growing and learning?

Firstly, there is a main problem that student’s thinking is destroyed. Student, nowadays, uses internet for entertainment as well as searching information. It is effective and efficient to search by using key words. Student could use less time to find more information whatever they need on world wide web which created by Bush (1945) Also, the hyper links which linking one pieces of information to another help student to click subject to subject easily. However, these not only make them lazier, but also distract their thinking. When searching one thing, the hyper links or searching lists distract from what they are looking for and make people unable to concentrate. (Keen, 2007) Although this computer system is copied from human brain’s associate thinking concept, people find difficult to go back from linear thinking. Linear thinking is important for student learning and studying. Learning step-by-step is good for strengthen broad-based knowledge. When young people learn some concepts and theories, linear thinking strongly helps them to understand knowledge by process and deepen memories.

Secondly, internet fosters student learning attitude. According to the BBC test in its program, young generation spent 1/6 times of the elderly on one page to find data. They are not willing to stand in a site or one page for long. Most of student do not want to spend time on reading books and never read things in details. (Runciman and Nicholas) They are more likely to search information online and copy other’s ideas. Therefore, students in digital generation are lazier and study without their own thinking and opinion. It is believed that in foreseeable future, the quality and ability of our next generation will drop.

On the other hand, internet still bring new generation a lot of advantages. Internet has become an indispensible means for young people, the web surfing is the basic skill with all of them. People’s sense and imagination is mostly form screen, they often increase their creativity when they have seen from internet. For example, The Youtube website creates a lot of video and makes people to get lots innovations and comments when they view other people’s compositions. In addition, using blog is also encourage students writing, they usually practice their writing skill when they search other people’s own words, although it is not formal, they are more likely to write rather than handwriting daily.

The development of Internet is not only interesting for young people’s life but also affects them to learning and accesses some boring areas, such as political and medical technology. It offers young students have lost experience to contact the thing they are unfamiliar. At the same time, student may interflow with each other’s thinking and idea. The real-time benefit could make them get a great deal of new information as well as new knowledge which replace the old one.

Time is changing; the internet has been essential to human life. It helps people link to entire world and reach to any distant places. Consequently, internet changes the way of communication and make turn the world into a single community

Conclusion

To sum up, indeed, internet has been influencing people's life enormously. Inevitably, this revolution would be continuously and bring controversy over the advantages and disadvantages. However there are many serious and negative effects revealed through the basic of human lifestyle that would be the juncture to rebuild and improve the internet system. For example, reinforce the correct conception of using web by education. On the other hand, this trend could be an opportunity for marketers to develop marketing strength. As evidence of this, marketers can reach their target audiences by applying World of Mouth, such as Youtube to influence young generation or advocate the right concept of using network.

Reference:
BBC (2009), “The virtual Revolution: Homo Interneticus” [online] Available from [28th February 2009]

Bush, V. (1945) ‘As we may think’, Interaction, 3(2), 35 - 46
http://net.pku.edu.cn/~course/cs410/reading/bush_aswemaythink.pdf

Carr, N.G (2008) ‘Is Google Making us stupid? What the Internet is doing to our brains’ The Atlantic magazine
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-9962935-16.html

Keen, A. (2007) The cult of the amateur: how today's internet is killing our culture and assaulting our economy, London: Nicholas Brealey

Nicholas, D. Director of CIBER, UCL
Runciman, D. Political scientist, Cambridge University