Toward multi-dimensional trust: exploring antecedents to trust in a complex domain

Abstract

This research proposes a new multi-dimension trust model and develops a typology of antecedents to trust in the context of high domain complexity. Using open-ended questions, we explore what users think would create, promote or manage trust. We argue that trust affects individuals' intention to use tax preparation software and electronic tax filing. This is an interesting research setting because of 1) the complexity of the tax law; 2) the privacy of the subject matter; 3) the omnipresence of the issue; 4) the current promotion of e-filing by the Internal Revenue Service; 5) individual taxpayers' ambivalence or negative attitude toward taxes and the government. We propose that when the information system serves as surrogate for a domain expert, multi-dimensional trust and several novel antecedents to trust, such as power and control based, reparative and system-quality based antecedents, should be considered as potential determinants of use.