E-commerce assurance models and trustworthiness issues: an empirical study

Abstract

Purpose – The internet provides a mechanism by which buyers and sellers meet in order to exchange goods and services online with the utmost convenience. However, there are many risks associated with the internet which, if left unattended, could continue deterring the adoption of e-commerce. These risks ultimately diminish online consumer trust in e-commerce. Web assurance models have been designed in an attempt to encourage online consumer trust through assurance. Unfortunately, many of these models have been inadequate in certain areas and this research aims to improve on them. Design/methodology/approach – It presents a comprehensive empirical survey on trustworthiness issues and e-commerce assurance models and proposes a new compliance-based e-commerce assurance model that integrates adaptive legislation, adaptive e-commerce-related standards and cooperative rating. The intelligent cooperative rating is based on the analytic hierarchy process and page-ranking techniques. Findings – Some findings of this research study influence the thinking that some of the untrustworthy sites are posing as trustworthy sites because they display web seals. The findings can be used as a reference guide to understand e-commerce assurance models, as well as the effectiveness of ensuring the trustworthiness of these models. Practical implications – The research presents deployment analysis on the use of the proposed compliance model through real life scenarios categorized as trustworthy and untrustworthy e-commerce web sites. Originality/value – This research is relevant to information management and computer security in e-commerce as a development of a newly proposed e-commerce assurance model for trustworthiness safety inspections and knowledge generation as a reference guide to understand e-commerce trustworthiness in general and e-commerce assurance models in particular detail.