International Journal of Information Management 45 (2019) 1–12

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International Journal of Information Management

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijinfomgt

An integrated view of particularized trust in social commerce: An empirical T

investigation
⁎
Xusen Chenga, , Yu Gub, Jia Shenc
a
Department of E-Business, School of Information Technology and Management, University of International Business and Economics, Chaoyang District, Beijing, 100029,
China
b
School of Economics and Management, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China
c
Department of Information Systems and Supply Chain Management, College of Business Administration, Rider University, Lawrenceville, 08648, USA

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: With the prevalence of social media and social networking, social commerce is becoming increasingly popular in
Social commerce both business and research areas. As in other types of e-commerce context, trust is also indispensable in social
Particularized trust commerce. In this study, two types of trust have been discussed. This study represents an initial attempt to
System trust provide an integrated view of particularized trust in social commerce, including particularized trust antecedents,
Particularized trust antecedents
trust transfer and trust performance, so as to promote trust formation in social commerce. Using data collected
Trust transfer
from 614 social commerce users, we demonstrate that trust disposition, quality-assured shared information,
familiarity and endorsement by other members are four antecedents of particularized trust. The results also
indicate particularized trust can be transferred into system trust, and particularized trust only exerts positive
effect on social WOM intention while system trust only exerts positive effect on social shopping intention.
Furthermore, we prove perceived similarity can strengthen the relationship between trust disposition and par-
ticularized trust as well as the relationship between quality-assured shared information and particularized trust.

1. Introduction perceived risk. Thus, in social commerce apps, where communications

With the popularity of social media and social networking, people
are beginning to rely on others’ product/service reviews and re-
commendations before making a purchase decision, so as to make in-
formed purchases and acquire the best prices (Alalwan, Rana, Dwivedi,
& Algharabat, 2017; Kapoor et al., 2018). Thus, social commerce, a new
delivery platform of e-commerce, emerged in this trend (Stephen &
Toubia, 2010). On social commerce apps, users are encouraged to share
their shopping experience and they can also refer to others’ shopping
experience before making purchase decisions (Kim & Park, 2013).
Previous research manifested that trust plays a vital role in the for-
mation and maintenance of social exchange relationships (Newman,
Kiazad, Miao, & Cooper, 2014). It is a prerequisite for successful com-
merce as consumers are hesitant to make purchases unless they trust the
seller (Kim, Ferrin, & Rao, 2008; Kim, Song, Braynov, & Rao, 2005). It
becomes even more crucial in online shopping environment as a result
of the complexity and diversity of online interactions and the possibility
of insincere and unpredictable behaviors in e-commerce (Gefen,
Karahanna, & Straub, 2003). Cheng, Fu, and Druckenmiller (2016) ar-
gued that communication between members highly relates to members’
and interactions between members are frequent, it is more essential to
build trust. Through reviewing extant literature about social media and
marketing, Alalwan et al. (2017) argued that future studies are required
to explore the impact of customer’s trust on their intention to depend
and engage more with social media platforms. Therefore, the research
question of this paper is how member’ trust influences their behaviors
in social commerce app?
Thus, given the crucial role of trust and the increasingly popularity
of social commerce, this study focus on trust in social commerce. Social
commerce is different from other types of e-commerce because inter-
actions between members play a crucial role in social commerce.
Hence, whether trust in social commerce differs from trust in e-com-
merce context is worthwhile to explore. Previous studies generally re-
garded trust in social commerce as a general concept (Hajli, 2013; Kim
& Park, 2013; Liang & Turban, 2011), which targets on website di-
mension. However, due to the important role of member in social
commerce, it is appropriate to distinguish trust in social commerce into
two types, namely particularized trust towards social commerce mem-
bers and system trust towards social commerce apps, considering trust
in social commerce from both member dimension and website

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: xusen.cheng@uibe.edu.cn (X. Cheng), 1447750789@qq.com (Y. Gu), jiashen@rider.edu (J. Shen).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2018.10.014
Received 2 August 2018; Received in revised form 19 October 2018; Accepted 19 October 2018
0268-4012/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
X. Cheng et al.
dimension. The concept of particularized trust has been used in so-
ciology area before, which refers to trust in members of the group to
which one belongs (Uslaner, 2002). System trust refers to members’
trust towards the social commerce app (Pennington, Wilcox, & Grover,
2003). Few research has been conducted to explore trust in social
commerce in both particularized trust dimension and system trust di-
mension. Therefore, in this study, we try to investigate trust in social
commerce in these two dimensions and also seek to explore the per-
formance of these two types of trust in social commerce. Additionally,
due to the crucial role of members in social commerce as well as a
paucity of research about particularized trust towards social commerce
members in previous studies, there is a pressing need to more thor-
oughly understand what factors influence particularized trust in social
commerce. Furthermore, we will also test the moderating effects that
perceived similarity exerts on the relationship between particularized
trust antecedents and particularized trust. There are many interest
communities in social commerce apps, where members with similar
interests and shopping experiences can assemble in the social com-
merce community and share their attitudes or opinions with each other
(Hajli, 2015; Shiau, Dwivedi, & Yang, 2017). Hence, members in social
commerce will perceive higher level of similarity than those in e-
commerce context (Chu & Kim, 2011). Consequently, the level of per-
ceived similarity can be regarded as a distinction between social com-
merce and e-commerce. So the interactive impact of particularized trust
antecedents and perceived similarity on particularized trust is worth-
while to be investigated.
In general, this study contributes to the existing research by in-
troducing the term of particularized trust in sociology into social
commerce, representing an initial attempt to explore the antecedents of
particularized trust towards social commerce members. This study also
tests the moderating role of members’ perceived similarity and provides
an integrated view of trust in social commerce, including trust ante-
cedents, trust transfer and trust performance.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. In the next
section, we review the theoretical background of this study. This is
followed by a discussion of the conceptual model and the associated
research hypotheses. Data collection and data analysis results are re-
ported in next two sections. In the last section, we discuss the key
findings and limitations of this study, as well as the implications for
both research and practice.
2. Theoretical background
2.1. Social commerce
Although the concept of social commerce has only a decade of
history, however, researches about social commerce are increasing
exponentially in recent years (Dwivedi, Kapoor, & Chen, 2015; Kim &
Kim, 2018; Shiau, Dwivedi, & Lai, 2018; Shiau et al., 2017). According
to the definition provided by Huang and Benyoucef (2013), social
commerce is defined as “an Internet-based commercial application,
leveraging social media and Web 2.0 technologies which support social
interaction and user generated content in order to assist consumers in
their decision making and acquisition of products and services within
online marketplaces and communities”. We can find that social com-
merce is constructed by three main concepts, namely social media, Web
2.0 technologies and e-commerce (Busalim & Hussin, 2016; Lai, 2010).
Social media consists of various user-driven platforms that facilitate
diffusion of compelling content, dialogue creation, and communication
to a broader audience, which is essentially a digital space created by the
people and for the people, and provides an environment that is con-
ducive for interactions and networking to occur at different levels
(Kapoor et al., 2018). Web 2.0 technologies refer to the popular term
for advanced Internet technology and applications, including blogs,
wikis, podcasting, RSS and social networks (Grabner-Kräuter, 2009).
And e-commerce refers to commercial activities carried out over the
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International Journal of Information Management 45 (2019) 1–12
Internet communications networks (Fung & Lee, 1999).
As a subset of e-commerce, social commerce has some unique
characteristics compared with traditional e-commerce (Busalim &
Hussin, 2016). Regarding system interaction, social commerce is widely
considered as a context where user-generated content can be created,
shared and thus other members’ purchase intentions could be influ-
enced. While traditional e-commerce only provides one-way browsing,
and the creation of content is mainly dominated by platform operators
and customers usually receive information passively. In terms of busi-
ness model, social commerce is based on advanced technology such as
Web 2.0 and cloud computing, and it can be co-designed by both cus-
tomer and platform operator. However, traditional e-commerce is only
based on traditional technology and facilitated by the research and
development of the platform operator. As for design, social commerce is
user-centered, focusing on the design of interactive interface which
enables identity, interaction and communities. However, e-commerce
pays more attention to the presentation of products and service and
optimization of search engine and navigation. Thus, social commerce
environment shifted online marketplace from product-oriented plat-
form to customer-oriented environment (Busalim & Hussin, 2016).
2.2. Particularized trust vs. System trust
We will discuss two kinds of trust in this study, system trust towards
social commerce apps and particularized trust towards social commerce
members. The concept of particularized trust was firstly introduced by
Uslaner (2002) in sociology area, which is defined as “the belief that
trust can be applied to specific individuals or individuals associated
with a certain network or group, such as family members, relatives, and
friends” (Li & Wu, 2010). It is a kind of social trust in individual-level
that based on the relations between people in a close social proximity.
Lindström (2014) used particularized trust to describe the trust that
individuals within the same social network perceive between each
other. In this study, we define particularized trust towards social
commerce members as “the belief that trust can be applied to other
members within the same social commerce community”. As a type of
interpersonal trust, particularized trust focuses more on interpersonal
trust between members who interact frequently or are closely bonded
rather than general trust towards other people, which is based more on
the sense of security arising from the knowledge about and predict-
ability of other members (Igarashi, Kashima, & Kashima, 2008). Be-
cause in e-commerce context, there is little or no interaction between
members on the website, members’ trust towards other members in e-
commerce context can be regard as generalized trust (Uslaner, 2002).
However, social commerce pays more attention to social interaction
between social commerce members. They can share their shopping
experience with other members and refer to others’ suggestions when
making purchase decisions. Hence they are closely bonded in a social
commerce network. Therefore, trust among members on social com-
merce apps could be considered as particularized trust, which can
better reflect the particularity of social commerce.
System trust is an individual’s perceptions of the institutional en-
vironment of the social commerce app and the structural assurances
(including safeguards, such as regulations, laws, guarantees, and con-
tracts) provided by an app operator, which makes the participants feel
safe (Benlian & Hess, 2011). It is not based on any property or state of
the trustee, but rather on the perceived reliance or properties in the
system or institution where trustor exists (Cheng, Nolan, & Macaulay,
2013). System trust rests on different bases from particularized trust
(Lewis & Weigert, 1985). Particularized trust usually involves an
emotional bond between individuals, while system trust rests on “pre-
sentational” base, which is the appearance that “everything seems in
proper order” (Lewis & Weigert, 1985). Therefore, system trust refers to
one’s perception of the community to be a reliable and predictable
place for social interaction (Chen & Shen, 2015), other than an as-
sessment toward the performance of an individual.
X. Cheng et al.
2.3. Antecedents of trust
In this study, we will adopt the most commonly accepted definition
of trust given by Mayer, Davis, and Schoorman (1995), which defined
trust as “willingness of a party (trustor) to be vulnerable to the actions
of another party (trustee) based on the expectation that the other party
will perform a particular action important to the trustor, irrespective of
the ability to monitor or control that other party”. A plethora of re-
searches about trust antecedents in online marketplace have been
conducted. Based on different antecedents of trust, Zucker (1986)
classified trust into three categories: characteristic-based, process-based
and institutional-based trust. Gefen et al. (2003) described five methods
about how trust is produced in e-commerce context: knowledge-based,
institution-based, calculative-based, cognition-based and personality-
based. Fulmer and Gelfand (2012) illuminated individual trust in online
interpersonal relationships from seven aspects, which are trustor
characteristics, trustee characteristics and behavior, shared character-
istics between trustor and trustee, communication process, structural/
networks characteristics, organizational characteristics and external
characteristics to the organization. It is a holistic generalization of in-
terpersonal trust in online organization. In addition, Kim and Park
(2013) identified seven social commerce characteristics influencing
trust in social commerce. When studying shopping via social media,
Nadeem, Andreini, Salo, and Laukkanen (2015) proposed that website
service quality, peer recommendations and online shopping via Face-
book have positive effects on trust toward an e-tailer. Furthermore,
Cheng, Fu, and Vreede (2017) verified four salient factors influencing
trust in peer-to-peer interpersonal communication in social media,
namely familiarity, perceived privacy concerns, information quality
and shared preference.
Table 1 summarizes studies about trust and trust antecedents in
social commerce. Based on the researches we enumerated, we find that
although many researches have studied the antecedents of trust in so-
cial commerce, most of them shed light on the characteristics of website
other than the characteristics of members. Consequently, learning from
the research of Fulmer and Gelfand (2012), we intend to examine the
antecedents of particularized trust in social commerce from four facets
only concerning individual, which are trustor characteristics, trustee
characteristics, shared characteristics between trustor and trustee as
well as other members’ characteristics in the social commerce com-
munity. In this study, we consider trust disposition, quality-assured
shared information, familiarity and endorsement by other members as
individual-based trust antecedents.
2.4. Trust transfer theory
This study also investigates trust transfer between these two types of
trust. Because particularized trust and system trust both play critical
roles in social commerce, it is necessary to explore the interplay be-
tween them. According to trust transfer theory, one's trust in a known
person/object can shift to an unknown person/object that has certain
association with the known person/object (Stewart, 2003). Trust
transfer process involves three different actors, namely trustor, trustee
and a trusted third party. Trustor refers to the one who makes judg-
ments on whether or not to trust others, trustee is the one who receives
trust from the trustor, and a trusted third party is the broker in the trust
transfer process (Burt & Knez, 1995; Stewart, 2003). In this process,
trustworthiness of the trustor can be transferred from the trusted third
party to the trustee when there is a close relationship between the
trustee and the third party. In this study, trustor is member on the social
commerce app, the trusted third party refers to other members on the
social commerce app and the social commerce app can be regarded as
the trustee. Zucker (1986) demonstrated that institutional trust can be
transferred to trust in members of the institution. However, in this
study, we focus on the trust transfer from member-member to member-
website instead of the impact that institutional trust exerts on
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International Journal of Information Management 45 (2019) 1–12
particularized trust. There are two reasons accounting for it. First, as
the ultimate purpose of social commerce apps is to make profit, it’s vital
to form consumers’ trust towards the app. When trust is present, com-
munication and problem solving are relatively easy for people making
ethical commitments. That is to say, trust can lead to superior in-
formation sharing and lower transaction cost, providing apps with a
source of competitive advantage (Rodgers, 2010). Second, members
account for an important position in social commerce and particular-
ized trust can be built among them. Hence, in aid of social commerce
apps to achieve its commercial goal, it’s essential to investigate whether
particularized trust towards social commerce members can be trans-
ferred into trust towards social commerce apps. Fortunately, several
previous studies have proved that trust transfer can be made from an
individual to an association. When studying trust in C2C online com-
munities, Chen, Zhang, and Xu (2009) demonstrated the transference
from mutual trust among members to trust in the platform provider. In
addition, Chen and Shen (2015) argued that trust towards members can
be transferred into trust towards social commerce community. There-
fore, we believe that particularized trust towards social commerce
members can be transferred to members’ trust towards social commerce
apps.
3. Conceptual model and hypotheses
3.1. Conceptual model
Fig. 1 depicts the proposed conceptual framework, which reflects
the antecedents of particularized trust towards social commerce mem-
bers, how particularized trust influences system trust towards social
commerce apps, the moderating effect of perceived similarity and how
these two kinds of trust affect members’ social WOM intentions and
social shopping intentions. In this section, the key components of the
conceptual model and their interrelationships are addressed.
3.2. Trust antecedents
3.2.1. Trustor characteristics
Trust disposition assesses member’s tendency to believe or not to
believe in others and so trust them (Gefen et al., 2003). It is based on
the belief that others are typically well-meaning, reliable and ethical
(Gefen et al., 2003). Trust disposition is independent of any context and
linked to individual traits (Cheng, Yin, Azadegan, & Kolfschoten, 2016;
Erikson, 1993; McKnight & Chervany, 1996). It is particularly essential
under less familiar circumstances, i.e. when the situation, the type of
relationship and the other members are new or unknown (Grabner-
Kröuter, 2009; Mayer et al., 1995; McKnight, Cummings, & Chervany,
1998). In the context of e-commerce, Gefen (2000) found individuals’
disposition to trust primarily affects their trust in online vendor. Lu and
Zhou (2007) also claimed that consumers’ trust disposition exerts po-
sitively effect on the initial trust formation in business-to-consumer
(B2C) environment. Therefore, trust disposition is also vital for parti-
cularized trust building on social commerce apps and we hypothesize:
H1. Trust disposition positively affects particularized trust towards
social commerce members.
3.2.2. Trustee characteristics
In this study, quality-assured shared information refers to the in-
formation, which members on the social commerce apps share, is ac-
curate, correct, timely, and useful (Kim & Park, 2013). It is associated
with the characteristics of information propagators. Previous studies
have demonstrated that quality-assured shared information has a sig-
nificant impact on trust formation. Bock, Lee, Kuan, and Kim (2012)
claimed that information quality exerts positive effect on online trust
formation in the context of multi-channel retailers at the initial-inter-
action phase. In e-commerce context, Fung and Lee (1999) regarded
X. Cheng et al. International Journal of Information Management 45 (2019) 1–12

Table 1
Literature on trust and its antecedents in social commerce.
Study Research Context Antecedents of Trust Trust

Grabner-Kräuter (2009) Web 2.0 social networks First impressions, Trust in online social networks
Calculative processes,
Institutional bases,
Past interactions or experience with a social
network site,
Identification-based trust
Hsiao et al. (2010) Social shopping networks of Perceived ability, Trust in product recommendation
websites Perceived benevolence/integrity, Trust in website
Perceived critical mass;
Perceived web reputation,
Perceived web quality,
Perceived institution assurance
Kim and Park (2013) Social commerce Reputation, Trust in social commerce
Size,
Information quality,
Transaction safety,
Communication,
Economic feasibility,
Word-of-mouth referrals
Ng (2013) Social commerce websites Closeness, Trust in social network community
Familiarity
See-To and Ho (2014) Social network sites Disposition to trust, Trust on a product in social network sites
EWOM in social network sites,
Institutional-based trust
Chen and Shen (2015) Social commerce Emotional support, Trust towards members
Informational support
Lu, Fan, and Zhou (2016) Social commerce Social presence of Web, Trust in sellers
Perception of others,
Social presence of interaction with sellers
Lu, Zeng, and Fan (2016) Social commerce Perceived effectiveness of institutional Trust in marketplace
mechanisms,
Perceived social presence
Shanmugam, Sun, Amidi, Khani, and Social commerce Social commerce constructs, Trust on online community platforms
Khani (2016) Social support constructs
Cheng et al. (2017) Social media communication Familiarity, Trust towards peer-to-peer interpersonal
Perceived privacy concerns, communication
Information quality,
Shared preferences
Hajli, Wang, Tajvidi, and Hajli (2017) Social commerce Perceived ease of use, Trust in social commerce site
Perceived usefulness
Yahia, Al-Neama, and Kerbache (2018) Social media platforms Social commerce vendor characteristics, Trust in social commerce vendor
Perception of the platform,
Social support

Fig. 1. Proposed particularized trust in social commerce model.

4
X. Cheng et al.
information quality as a paramount antecedent of initial trust. There-
fore, we hypothesize:
H2. Quality-assured shared information positively affects particularized
trust towards social commerce members.
3.2.3. Shared characteristics between trustor and trustee
Familiarity often arises when trustor and trustee are familiar to each
other (Koehn, 2003). Familiarity is an understanding of trustors, often
based on previous interactions, experiences, and learning of what, why,
where and when the trustees do what they do (Gefen, 2000). It is a
precondition or prerequisite of trust (Luhmann, 1982). In the process of
interacting with the trustee, trustor can accumulate relevant knowledge
about them, which they can base on to predict trustees’ behaviors in the
future. Consequently, specific favorable expectations from the trustees
can be made in this process, that is to say, trust can be formed in the
relationship between the trustor and the trustee. Studying book pur-
chasing on the e-commerce websites, Gefen (2000) found that famil-
iarity assists with trust building in the purchasing process. Using data
collected from Taobao Virtual Community, Lu, Zhao, and Wang (2010)
demonstrated that familiarity is one of the crucial antecedents of trust
towards members in virtual communities.
Familiarity in this context refers to the familiarity built between
members on social commerce apps. Individuals get to know each other
through interactions between them, and then they are able to predict
others’ behaviors based on the information they have obtained (Lu
et al., 2010). People will perceive less risk if others’ behaviors are more
predictable, as a result, a higher level of trust in other members can be
attained. Therefore, we hypothesize:
H3. Familiarity positively affects particularized trust towards social
commerce members.
3.2.4. Characteristics of other members
There are a plethora of members in social commerce communities.
Apart from the characteristics of the trustor and the trustee, the reac-
tions of other members in the community may also have great influence
on trustor’s trust towards the trustee. Therefore, we introduce the
concept of endorsement in advertising into this study to assess other
members’ reaction in social commerce. Previous researches about en-
dorsement usually focused on celebrity endorsement which is a per-
mission that the celebrity gives to the brand (or other entity) to use her/
his name and/or physical appearance in certain ways, e.g. for the
purpose of promoting the entity (Bergkvist & Zhou, 2016). However, in
this study, endorsement by other members in the social commerce
community is different from celebrity endorsement in advertising. It
doesn’t refer to the permission to use other members’ names or physical
appearance, but refers to other members’ agreements or approvals for
the information disseminated by the trustee. Endorsement by other
members include other members’ favorable comments, likes, collec-
tions, and becoming fans of the trustee. Lim, Sia, Lee, and Benbasat
(2006) found that the endorsement of satisfied customer will increase
consumers’ trusting beliefs about the online bookstore. Hsu, Chuang,
and Hsu (2014) also demonstrated that positive endorsement provided
by satisfied customers can strengthen customers’ trust for the vendors
by means of building an instant positive reputation for the vendors.
Thus, larger number of favorable comments (or likes, collections, fans)
on the information shared by the trustee implies more members are in
favor of the trustee. Influenced by other members in the social com-
merce community, trustor will form trust towards the trustee more
easily. Therefore, we hypothesize:
H4. Endorsement by other members positively affects particularized
trust towards social commerce members.
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International Journal of Information Management 45 (2019) 1–12
3.2.5. The moderating role of perceived similarity
Perceived similarity assesses the member’s belief that other mem-
bers on the social commerce apps share common characteristics with
him or her, such as interests, values, shopping experiences or demo-
graphic traits (Doney & Cannon, 1997; Lu et al., 2010). In the research
about relationship between buyers and sellers, Doney and Cannon
(1997) found that buyers, who perceive salespeople to be similar to
them, feel better able to build a sense of trust in the sellers. In addition,
in the study of relationship quality in service selling, it was proved that
similarity can influence sales effectiveness directly (Crosby, Evans, &
Cowles, 1990). Apart from offline contexts, perceived similarity also
has a significant impact on online trust building process. In virtual
community environment, perceived similarity positively relates to trust
in other members in the community (Lu et al., 2010). Additionally,
perceived similarity can reduce reactance by increasing compliance and
reducing resistance and promoting participants’ acceptance of the
message offered by the communicator (Silvia, 2005). Therefore, in so-
cial commerce communities, where members share high level of per-
ceived similarity with each other, the positive effects of trust disposi-
tion, quality-assured shared information, familiarity as well as
endorsement by other members on particularized trust towards social
commerce members will be strengthened. Hence, we hypothesize:
H5a. Perceived similarity will strengthen the positive relationship
between trust disposition and particularized trust towards social
commerce members.
H5b. Perceived similarity will strengthen the positive relationship
between quality-assured shared information and particularized trust
towards social commerce members.
H5c. Perceived similarity will strengthen the positive relationship
between familiarity and particularized trust towards social commerce
members.
H5d. Perceived similarity will strengthen the positive relationship
between endorsement by other members and particularized trust
towards social commerce members.
3.3. Trust transfer
Based on the trust transfer theory, one's trust can be transferred
from a known target to an unknown target (Stewart, 2003). Previous
research proved that institutional trust can be transferred to trust in
members of the institution (Zucker, 1986). However, because particu-
larized trust towards members is particular in social commerce and the
final purpose of those social commerce apps is to earn profit, in this
study, we intend to discover whether mutual trust among members can
be transferred into their trust in the platform provider (Chen et al.,
2009).
On social commerce apps, members can share their own shopping
experiences and recommendations to help others make purchase deci-
sions, thereby particularized trust between members can be built and
the existence of it provides fertile soil for the generation of trust in their
shared institution (Chen & Shen, 2015; Chen et al., 2009; Sztompka,
1999). In addition, by gathering trustable members, the platform pro-
vider demonstrates its ability to offer effective management of the en-
vironment as well as the benevolence to cultivate a healthy environ-
ment (Chen et al., 2009). Furthermore, if websites cheat consumers or
behave unethically, they will be easily uncovered and punished through
the communication between members (Lu et al., 2010). Therefore, we
hypothesize:
H6. Particularized trust towards members positively affects system trust
towards social commerce apps.
X. Cheng et al. International Journal of Information Management 45 (2019) 1–12

3.4. Trust performance social shopping intention.

Members’ affect influences their behavioral intention (Chang &

4. Data collection and analysis
Chen, 2009). Hence, particularized trust towards social commerce
members and system trust towards social commerce apps will also
4.1. Data collection
impact members’ behavioral intentions in social commerce. By re-
viewing extant research articles about social media, Alalwan et al.
This study chooses the users of a few quintessential social commerce
(2017) divided researches concerning the impact of social media on
apps in China, including MOGU Street, Meilishuo, Huaban, Duitang and
customers’ behaviors into two parts, one part of literature has con-
Red. We received 686 responses in total. Among these responses, 72
centrated on how customers could depend and use social media plat-
were excluded because of inappropriate data or having not used social
forms as a source of information in their purchasing process, the other
commerce apps. The response rate of the survey is 89.5%. All of the
part of literature centered on how customers’ buying behavior could be
questionnaires were online questionnaires.
influenced by social media platforms. Therefore, in this study, we can
Since this research was conducted in China, the original English
also consider these two kinds of user behaviors, social WOM intention
version of the questionnaire was translated into Chinese first, and then
and social shopping intention, as trust performance.
was translated backward into English again. Six postgraduate and six
undergraduate students were asked to check the consistency between
3.4.1. Particularized trust towards social commerce members the Chinese and the original English version. Before initiating data
In this study, particularized trust in social commerce means that collection, we conducted a pilot test among 30 people in order to refine
members on social commerce apps have the belief that other members’ the questionnaire wordings, preliminary test the face validity of survey
words or recommendations in their communication are reliable (Schurr instruments and check ease of understanding. After incorporating a few
& Ozanne, 1985). On social commerce app, which is a virtual en- suggestions concerning the format and grammar of the questions, a
vironment, participants are usually anonymous and do not engage in revised version of questionnaire was completed. Appendix A shows the
direct face-to-face communication. Because of this, particularized trust final version of the questionnaire.
between members is essential in the process of purchase.
Previous studies have proved that particularized trust between
4.2. Measures
members has a positive influence on their participatory behaviors. In
virtual community, Ridings, Gefen, and Arinze (2002) found that trust
All measures in this study have been used and validated in prior
in other members’ ability and benevolence exerts significant effect on
studies (see Appendix A). A slice of changes have been made in order to
their desire to give and get information. On C2C websites, Lu et al.
better fit the current research context. Trust disposition was measured
(2010) claimed that trust towards members plays an important part in
with the items adapted from Gefen and Straub (2004). Quality-assured
affecting members’ intention to get information and make purchase
shared information and social WOM intention were measured with
decisions. In addition, it was also suggested that a buyer with a higher
items adapted from Kim and Park (2013). Familiarity was measured
level of trust in a social commerce site or seller is more likely to share
with the items adapted from Gefen et al. (2003). The scale of en-
his or her experience or related information with other buyers on the
dorsement by other members was adapted from Lim et al. (2006). So-
online platform (Kim & Kim, 2010). Therefore, we hypothesize:
cial shopping intention was measured by items adapted from Liang, Ho,
H7a. Particularized trust towards social commerce members positively Li, and Turban (2011). In addition, particularized trust towards social
affects social WOM intention. commerce members and perceived similarity were measured by items
adapted from Lu et al. (2010). System trust towards social commerce
H7b. Particularized trust towards social commerce members positively
apps was measured by items adapted from Lu et al. (2010) and
affects social shopping intention.
Pennington et al. (2003). Instruments for all the constructs were
phrased on a five-point Likert scales, anchored from “1=strongly dis-
3.4.2. System trust towards social commerce apps agree” to “5=strongly agree”.
System trust towards social commerce apps refers to member’s be-
lief that the social commerce app or the sponsor is capable of providing 4.3. Sample characteristics
quality services and would do good to its consumers or users (Lu et al.,
2010). A multitude of researchers have claimed that if communities can Table 2 shows the demographic statistics of the dataset. About
convince consumers to trust them, the consumers will manifest favor- 52.9% of the subjects were male, and 47.1% were female. As the target
able purchase or recommendation intentions (Hsiao, Chuan-Chuan Lin, customers of social commerce apps are mainly students and young
Wang, Lu, & Yu, 2010; Kim & Park, 2013; Lu et al., 2010), because the
benevolence and integrity of the community will smooth away con- Table 2
Sample demographics.
sumers' worry about its opportunistic or unethical behaviors, such as
deceptive advertising or inappropriate use of personal information Measure Item Count %
(Chen & Shen, 2015). For example, Gefen (2000) found that in the
Gender Male 325 52.9
process of purchasing books on the Internet, trust in e-commerce
Female 289 47.1
websites significantly influences buyers’ intentions to inquire about Age < 18 0 0.0
books and their intentions to purchase books. When studying the 18–22 33 5.4
antecedents of online trust, Kuan and Bock (2007) also found that on- 23–25 131 21.3
26–30 200 32.6
line trust has a positive effect on online purchase intentions. Further-
31–40 169 27.5
more, Bock et al. (2012) also claimed that if a customer has a strong 41–50 59 9.6
perception of trust towards online multi-channel retailers, he/she will > =50 22 3.6
be more inclined to purchase products. Therefore, we hypothesize: The social commerce apps have ever used MOGU Street 472 76.9
(multiple responses) Meilishuo 354 57.7
H8a. System trust towards social commerce apps positively affects Huaban 84 13.7
social WOM intention. Red 211 34.4
Duitang 91 14.8
H8b. System trust towards social commerce apps positively affects

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X. Cheng et al. International Journal of Information Management 45 (2019) 1–12

workers, a majority of the respondents were young people aged be- Table 3
tween 18 and 40. Many of them have used more than one social com- Construct reliability and validity.
merce app. Constructs Items Mean S.D. Cronbach α CR AVE

4.4. Non-response bias Trust disposition TD1 3.72 0.786 0.862 0.864 0.614
TD2 3.81 0.824
TD3 3.81 0.726
Non-response bias is estimated by comparing the early respondents TD4 3.76 0.791
with the late respondents (Chen & Shen, 2015). In this study, we split Quality-assured shared QI1 3.76 1.165 0.937 0.937 0.788
our sample into four quartiles based on the time stamp of the response. information QI2 3.70 1.123
T-tests were performed to compare the medium of the first and the last QI3 3.66 1.095
QI4 3.73 1.119
quartile of respondents (Agag, 2017). No significant differences were
Familiarity FA1 3.74 0.871 0.843 0.849 0.584
found indicating that non-response bias is not a serious problem in this FA2 3.86 0.840
study. FA3 3.74 0.872
FA4 3.47 1.051
Endorsement by other ED1 3.93 0.863 0.865 0.866 0.618
4.5. Common method bias
members ED2 3.91 0.855
ED3 3.93 0.863
Common method bias exists when a general construct accounts for ED4 4.04 0.792
the majority of covariance between all constructs (Agag, 2017). We Perceived similarity PS1 3.74 0.982 0.906 0.906 0.706
performed a principal component factor analysis and the results ex- PS2 3.63 1.059
PS3 3.64 1.015
cluded the potential threat of common methods bias. The most variance
PS4 3.65 1.035
explained by one factor is 18.921% and no general factor accounted for Particularized trust PT1 3.68 0.894 0.899 0.900 0.692
more than 50% of variance. Furthermore, when loading all variables of PT2 3.66 0.935
our model on one factor, all fit statistics were unacceptable (CMIN/ PT3 3.57 0.968
DF = 13.715, NFI = 0.557, CFI = 0.575, RMSEA = 0.144), which in- PT4 3.51 0.913
System trust ST1 3.82 0.870 0.913 0.914 0.727
dicates that common method bias is not a serious problem in our da- ST2 3.82 0.930
taset (Wang, Qiu, Kim, & Benbasat, 2016). ST3 3.78 0.893
ST4 3.72 0.946
4.6. Results Social WOM intention SW1 3.86 0.945 0.904 0.904 0.703
SW2 3.79 0.961
SW3 3.90 0.966
To examine the proposed research model and test the hypotheses, SW4 3.89 0.978
data analyses were performed using Amos Version 21.0. Following the Social shopping intention SS1 4.07 0.774 0.844 0.845 0.578
two-step data analytical procedures (Nunnally, 1967), we firstly ex- SS2 3.86 0.838
amined the reliability and validity of the measurement model, and then SS3 4.02 0.817
SS4 3.95 0.807
tested the hypothesized relationships.
Note: CR-Composite Reliability, AVE-Average Variance Extracted.
4.6.1. Measurement model
The assessment of the measurement model includes the estimation positive effects on particularized trust, supporting H1–H4. Among these
of internal consistency for reliability, and tests of convergent and dis- four significant variables, familiarity and endorsement by other mem-
criminant validity for construct validity. bers exerted greatest effects on particularized trust, with path coeffi-
First, we used Cronbach’s alpha and composite reliability to eval- cient at 0.326 and 0.154, while trust disposition exerted least effect.
uate the internal consistency. It was suggested that 0.7 is the acceptable Regarding the moderating effect of perceived similarity, the results
threshold of Cronbach’s alpha (Nunnally, 1967). The results of our data indicate that perceived similarity can strengthen the positive relation-
ranged from 0.843 to 0.937, exceeding the threshold and proving suf- ship between trust disposition and particularized trust as well as the
ficient internal consistency. Composite reliability should be greater positive relationship between quality-assured shared information and
than the benchmark of 0.7 to be considered adequate (Fornell & particularized trust, which supported hypothesis H5a and H5b.
Larcker, 1981; Kim et al., 2008). In this research, the composite relia- However, the result indicates that perceived similarity will weaken the
bility ranged from 0.845 to 0.937, indicating adequate internal con- positive relationship between familiarity and particularized trust, not
sistency. The results of reliability and descriptive statistics of the con- supporting H5c. The last moderating effect between endorsement by
structs are shown in Table 3. other members and particularized trust has been proved to be insig-
Next, we used Average Variance Extracted (AVE) values to evaluate nificant, not supporting H5d.
convergent validity. In this research, the AVE values are all higher than The results also demonstrated that particularized trust towards so-
0.5, indicating the scales had a good convergent validity (Bagozzi & Yi, cial commerce members exerts great positive effect on system trust
1988).As shown in Table 3, the results indicate that all items are ac- towards social commerce apps, with path coefficients at 0.852 and
ceptable. significance level at p < 0.001, providing support for H6.
Finally, adequate discriminant validity requires the square root of The results further indicated that system trust towards social com-
the AVE for each construct should be higher than the correlations be- merce apps exerted greater effects on social shopping intention than
tween that construct and all other constructs (Chen & Shen, 2015; social WOM intention, while particularized trust towards social com-
Fornell & Larcker, 1981). As presented in Table 4, we can find that the merce members had greater influence on social WOM intention than
results demonstrate discriminant validity of the measurements. social shopping intention. The path coefficients between system trust
and social shopping intention as well as between particularized trust
4.6.2. Structural model and social WOM intention were significant at p < 0.001 level, however
The results of the analysis are presented in Fig. 2, including the the other two path coefficients were insignificant. Hence, H7a and H8b
standardized path coefficients (β) and the significance level of each were supported, but H7b and H8a were not supported (Table 5).
path. The overall fit of this model is roughly adequate (CMIN/
DF = 4.393, NFI = 0.901, CFI = 0.921, RMSEA = 0.074). All of the
four variables of particularized trust antecedents had significant

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X. Cheng et al. International Journal of Information Management 45 (2019) 1–12

Table 4
Latent variable correlations.
TD QI FA ED PS PT ST SW SS

Trust disposition 0.784

(TD)
Quality-assured shared information (QI) 0.387 0.887
Familiarity 0.555 0.675 0.764
(FA)
Endorsement by other members (ED) 0.568 0.664 0.697 0.786
Perceived similarity 0.358 0.526 0.651 0.471 0.840
(PS)
Particularized trust 0.620 0.763 0.588 0.725 0.607 0.832
(PT)
System trust 0.429 0.707 0.680 0.717 0.603 0.782 0.852
(ST)
Social WOM intention (SW) 0.554 0.715 0.548 0.603 0.552 0.680 0.577 0.838
Social shopping intention (SS) 0.643 0.087 0.473 0.572 0.350 0.372 0.486 0.568 0.760

Note: The bold numbers in the diagonal row are square roots of the average variance extracted.

5. Discussion and implications Table 5

Model fit.
5.1. Discussion of key findings CMIN CMIN/DF NFI CFI RMSEA

Firstly, regarding particularized trust antecedents, this study con- 2978.508 4.393 0.901 0.921 0.074
sidered the antecedents of particularized trust in social commerce from
four dimensions, which were trustor characteristics, trustee character-
istics, shared characteristics between trustor and trustee as well as other between trust disposition and particularized trust. It isn’t hard to see
members’ characteristics in the social commerce community. These that individuals have more willingness to believe in others will more
four facets of trust in this study referred to trust disposition, quality- easily form trust towards other members in social commerce commu-
assured shared information, familiarity and endorsement by other nity. In addition, quality-assured shared information was also proven to
members respectively. The research proved a positive relationship exert positive effect on particularized trust. As in the anonymous

Fig. 2. Structural model of particularized trust in social commerce.

8
X. Cheng et al.
cyberspace, individuals are almost impossible to be punished if they
spread fake or inaccurate information. Therefore, in the context with
little supervision, if the information quality that the member provides is
high, they will be more likely to be trusted by other members on the
website or app. This study also demonstrated that familiarity has a
positive effect on particularized trust towards social commerce mem-
bers. This may result from that with higher familiarity, individuals can
better predict others’ behaviors, thus will engage in a higher trust level
in others (Lu et al., 2010). Furthermore, the results predicted the po-
sitive relationship between endorsement by other members and parti-
cularized trust. With the endorsement and support of other members in
the social commerce community, the trusted member will gain high
reputation and prestige in the community (Hsu et al., 2014). Therefore,
influenced by other members, the trustor will form particularized trust
towards the trusted member more easily.
Secondly, regarding the moderating factor, we found that perceived
similarity can strengthen the positive relationship between trust dis-
position and particularized trust. Particularized trustors are more likely
to join groups composed of people like themselves. For trustors with
high trust disposition, they usually tend to believe others’ re-
commendations or referrals. If these recommendations or referrals are
in line with the trustors’ shopping interests, they are more able to form
trust towards the WOM propagator (trustee). Furthermore, perceived
similarity can also strengthen the positive relationship between quality-
assured shared information and particularized trust. It is also easy to
understand that if the WOM referrals are of high quality and fit the
trustors’ tastes, the trustors may have higher level of particularized trust
towards the WOM propagator (trustee) and be more willing to accept
the WOM. The results of this study also indicated that perceived simi-
larity may weaken the relationship between familiarity and particu-
larized trust, which was opposed to our hypothesis. It is also under-
standable when we attach different level of perceived similarity into
different types of platforms. In traditional e-commerce context, the
level of perceived similarity between members is lower than social
commerce context. Due to the lack of WOM in line with their interests,
they will pay more attention to the information shared by those whom
they are familiar with, thus familiarity may have greater impact on
trust formation. While in social commerce where members can seek
other members sharing high level of similarity with themselves, the
important role of familiarity may then be discounted. Hence, perceived
similarity may weaken the positive relationship between familiarity
and particularized trust. As for the moderating role between endorse-
ment by other members and particularized trust, it is also easy to un-
derstand that other members’ favor and support of the WOM referral
has great influence on trust formation both in e-commerce and social
commerce. Thus no matter the level of perceived similarity is low or
high, endorsement by other members may be always important.
Thirdly, regarding trust transfer, particularized trust was demon-
strated to be transferred into trust in the social commerce apps. By
gathering trustable members, social commerce apps can not only prove
its ability to offer effective management of the online environment but
also promote the generation of members’ trust in their shared institu-
tion (Chen & Shen, 2015; Chen et al., 2009; Sztompka, 1999). As a
result, particularized trust towards social commerce members facilitates
the emergence of system trust in social commerce apps.
Fourthly, regarding trust performance, particularized trust towards
social commerce members was found to significantly influence mem-
bers’ social WOM intention, but not significantly influence members’
social shopping intention, while system trust towards apps was proved
to exert positive effect on social shopping intention, but not on social
WOM intention. These findings are very interesting but still under-
standable. The main target of sharing information is other members on
the social commerce app. If other members in the social commerce app
are perceived to be reliable and trustworthy, members will freely share
their opinions and recommendations without worrying that other
members may use their sharing information to do something harmful.
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International Journal of Information Management 45 (2019) 1–12
Thus members’ particularized trust towards social commerce members
will promote their social sharing intention. While the main target of
shopping is the social commerce app. If members regard the social
commerce app as a safe and reliable place to complete the purchase
process, they will not be too worried about the transaction safety and
personal information disclosure to purchase goods on it. Hence, mem-
bers’ system trust towards social commerce app will affect their social
shopping intention. Previous research considered trust in social com-
merce as a whole to influence WOM intention and shopping intention
(Kim & Park, 2013). However, this study indicated that WOM intention
and shopping intention don’t derive from the same type of trust, but
from particularized trust and system trust respectively, which in turn
proved that it is necessary to categorize trust in social commerce into
different types.
5.2. Implications for research
This study contributes to the existing research in the following six
important ways. Firstly, this study contributes to the existing research
by representing an initial attempt to introduce the concept of particu-
larized trust in sociology into social commerce. Previous researches
about particularized trust mainly focused on trust in offline relation-
ships, which were used to explain civic engagement, communal co-
operation, grassroots governance, behaviors of prefecture residents and
so forth (Freitag & Traunmüller, 2009; Huhe, Chen, & Tang, 2015; Iglič,
2010; Uslaner & Conley, 2003; Yamamura, 2015). However, to the best
of our knowledge, little research has been conducted to explore parti-
cularized trust in online close-connected social communities, so it’s
original for us to introduce particularized trust into social commerce.
Secondly, we distinguish trust in social commerce into two cate-
gories, particularized trust towards social commerce members and
system trust towards social commerce apps. Previous studies mostly
regarded trust in social commerce as a general concept (Kim & Park,
2013; Liang & Turban, 2011; Nadeem et al., 2015; See-To & Ho, 2014;
Wang, Shen, & Sun, 2013;). Yet, in this study, considering the pecu-
liarity of social commerce is the interaction between members (Huang
& Benyoucef, 2013), we examined trust in two refined dimensions,
namely particularized trust and system trust, perfecting researches
about trust in social commerce.
Thirdly, we explore the antecedents of particularized trust in social
commerce. Based on previous theory about trust antecedents, we ex-
amine the antecedents of particularized trust from four aspects, which
are trustor characteristics, trustee characteristics, shared characteristics
between trustor and trustee as well as other members’ characteristics in
the social commerce community. The first three factors have been ex-
amined in previous studies, however, endorsement by other members
hasn’t been regarded as a trust antecedent before in literature on social
commerce. In this sense, our research contributes to current literature
on both trust antecedents and particularized trust.
Fourthly, we demonstrate that particularized trust towards social
commerce members can be transferred into members’ system trust to-
wards social commerce apps, which contributes to trust transfer theory
from two perspectives. First, this study broadens the research area of
trust transfer theory. The original trust transfer theory is developed to
understand how consumers’ initial trust in an online store is built
through the linkages between online and offline stores (Stewart, 2003).
Consequent studies also use this theory to explain the formation of the
trust in a newly established online brand, which is transferred from a
well-known online brand (Lim et al., 2006). However, the research on
trust transfer in social commerce is rare except for Chen and Shen
(2015). As social commerce is becoming increasingly popular and trust
plays a crucial role in social commerce, the research on this special
phenomenon is with critical value. Second, this study also expands the
content of trust transfer theory. Previous studies about trust transfer
theory mainly focused on trust transfer between different institutions,
i.e. trust transfer from offline stores to online stores (Kuan & Bock,
X. Cheng et al.
2007; Stewart, 2003) and trust transfer from online services to mobile
services (Lin, Lu, Wang, & Wei, 2011; Wang et al., 2013). However, in
this study, we investigate trust transfer from members to institutions,
which contributes to the content of trust transfer theory. Hence, this
study can be regarded as a try to fill the research gap by providing a
footstone for further theoretical development of trust transfer theory.
Fifthly, we also proved that perceived similarity can strengthen the
positive relationship between trust disposition and particularized trust
as well as quality-assured shared information and particularized trust.
Little research before has considered perceived similarity as a moder-
ating factor. Therefore, the moderating role of perceived similarity
validated in this study is a novel finding and more future studies can be
carried based on it.
Last but not least, this study represents an initial attempt to provide
an integrated view of particularized trust in social commerce, including
particularized trust antecedents, trust transfer and trust performance.
The results manifest that four kinds of particularized trust antecedents
exerts positive effects on particularized trust, which contributes to
theory about trust and trust performance. In terms of trust performance,
we consider two facets of trust performance in this study, social WOM
intention and social shopping intention, which can be regarded as two
different but highly-interrelated commercial activities in social com-
merce. The results show that particularized trust has positive impact on
social WOM intention while system trust has significant influence on
social shopping intention, which is an interesting finding. In this regard,
this study provides an important framework for future research on so-
cial commerce because few studies explained particularized trust in
social commerce in such a comprehensive way. Furthermore, this study
is among the first to focus on the Chinese social commerce phenomena
and we conduct an empirical study with a large data sample (614 valid
responses), which are unique contributions of this research as well.
5.3. Implications for practice
From a practical standpoint, we demonstrate that promoting trust
building among members can be helpful for forming trust in social
commerce apps. As a result, app builders can promote member’s trust in
the app by means of adding more robust functions promoting trust
building among members. Furthermore, this study also points out a few
determinants of particularized trust towards social commerce members,
namely trust disposition, quality-assured shared information, famil-
iarity and endorsement by other members. Therefore, social commerce
app builders could refer to these factors to promote their apps. They
may monitor the social WOM shared by social commerce members and
control the quality of the social WOM, so as to facilitate the formation
of member’s particularized trust. The app builders could also design a
function which enables social commerce members to invite their family
and friends to use this app in order to enhance member’s familiarity
with other members and member’s particularized trust will then be
built. Moreover, the app builders could also offer a bonus to social
commerce members as an incentive to encourage them to comment on
the social WOM shared by other members in the social commerce app
and develop functions which enable members to know about the
number of likes, forwardings and comments of the social WOM in-
formation, because endorsement by other members could promote the
building of member’s particularized trust.
In addition, this study demonstrates building particularized trust
can promote consumers' social WOM intentions and building system
trust towards social commerce apps can lift consumers’ social shopping
intentions. If the prime aim of app builders is to make profits, they
should pay more attention to promote the formation of member’s
system, such as building and developing safe transaction environment,
facilitating ease of use and usefulness of the social commerce app, be-
cause building member’s system trust towards social commerce apps
will strengthen member’s social shopping intentions, which can in-
crease the income of the social commerce app. In contrast, if the
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International Journal of Information Management 45 (2019) 1–12
primary goal of app builders is to draw traffic, they should focus on
member attraction and member retention. The building of particular-
ized trust is very important to member retention, because particularized
trust could strengthen member’s attachment to other members in the
social commerce community and then members will be more likely to
stay in the social commerce app. Therefore, the theoretical framework
and results may assist the owners of social commerce apps to improve
their apps by focusing on the factors identified in this study, and they
can leverage different promotion methods to achieve different com-
mercial goals (make profits or draw traffic), so that they can adopt the
optimum way to operate the social commerce apps.
Furthermore, we also found that perceived similarity can strengthen
the relationship between trust disposition and particularized trust as
well as the relationship between quality-assured shared information
and particularized trust. Therefore, app builders could establish interest
communities in the design of social commerce apps, where members
perceiving high level of similarity between each other could get to-
gether online and share their opinions and shopping experiences with
each other, so as to facilitate the formation of member’s particularized
trust.
6. Conclusion
6.1. Summary
This paper explores how member’ trust influences their behaviors in
social commerce app. We categorized member’s trust in social com-
merce into particularized trust towards social commerce members and
system trust towards social commerce apps, because members play a
crucial role in social commerce. The concept of particularized trust was
introduced from sociology area into social commerce in this paper,
which can better reflect the peculiarity of social commerce. We also
identified four antecedents of particularized, namely trust disposition,
quality-assured shared information, familiarity and endorsement by
other members, which are from the aspects of trustor characteristics,
trustee characteristics, shared characteristics between trustor and
trustee as well as other members’ characteristics in the social commerce
community respectively. The social commerce app builders could also
refer to these antecedents of particularized trust to better build their
social commerce apps. In addition, we also proved the moderating role
of perceived similarity in the relationship between trust disposition and
particularized trust as well as the relationship between quality-assured
shared information and particularized trust. Moreover, we provided an
integrated model of particularized trust in social commerce, including
particularized trust antecedents, particularized trust transfer to system
trust and trust performance, offering some alternative explanations
about how member’s trust influences their behaviors in social com-
merce app.
6.2. Limitations and future research directions
This study still has some limitations. First of all, the data of this
study was collected only in China, thus the results found in this study
may not be suitable for other cultural contexts. Secondly, as in this
study, we figured out four antecedents of particularized trust in social
commerce. However, some other antecedents of particularized trust
may also exist in social commerce, which we didn’t cover in this re-
search. Future research could focus on other factors that may influence
particularized trust towards social commerce members. Thirdly, we
regarded social WOM intention and social shopping intention rather
than users’ actual behaviors as indicators of trust performance.
However, actual behaviors and intentions are different, consequently,
the relationship between users’ intention and behavior still need to be
further investigated. Last, this study was conducted at a single point in
time rather than over time so that the results may vary from time to
time. Consequently, a longitudinal study is highly recommended in the
X. Cheng et al. International Journal of Information Management 45 (2019) 1–12

future. China (No. 71571045, 71871061), the Fundamental Research Funds for
the Central Universities in UIBE, Program for Excellent Talents in UIBE
Acknowledgement (No. 18JQ04) and Foundation for Disciplinary Development of SIT in
UIBE for providing funding for part of this research.
The authors thank the National Natural Science Foundation of

Appendix A

Questionnaire

Construct Item Content

Trust disposition TD1 I generally trust other people.

(Gefen & Straub, 2004) TD2 I feel that people are generally well meaning.
TD3 I feel that people are generally trustworthy.
TD4 I feel that people are generally reliable.
Quality-assured shared information QI1 I think members on the social commerce apps can provide useful information.
(Kim & Park, 2013) QI2 I think members on the social commerce apps can provide accurate information on the item that I want to purchase.
QI3 I think members on the social commerce apps can provide reliable information.
QI4 I think members on the social commerce apps can provide sufficient information when I try to make a transaction.
Familiarity FA1 I become familiar with some members on the social commerce apps through their referrals and comments.
(Gefen et al., 2003) FA2 I become familiar with the consumption habits and the shopping styles of some members on the social commerce apps through
their referrals and comments.
FA3 I become familiar with the characteristics and interests of some members on the social commerce apps through their referrals
and comments.
FA4 I communicate with some members on the social commerce apps frequently.
Endorsement by other members ED1 Favorable comments from other members in the social commerce communities make me feel that the commodity the member
(Lim et al., 2006) recommended is good.
ED2 The number of likes from other members in the social commerce communities makes me feel that the commodity the member
recommended is good.
ED3 The number of collections from other members in the social commerce communities makes me feel that the commodity the
member recommended is good.
ED4 The number of fans of other members in the social commerce communities makes me feel that the commodity the member
recommended is good.
Perceived Similarity PS1 I share similar goals with some members on the social commerce apps.
(Lu et al., 2010) PS2 I share similar interests with some members on the social commerce apps.
PS3 I share similar aesthetic tastes with some members on the social commerce apps.
PS4 I share similar shopping experiences with some members on the social commerce apps.
Particularized trust towards social com- PT1 I think members on the social commerce apps have the ability to help me with the puzzles.
merce members PT2 I think members on the social commerce apps will do everything within their capacity to help others.
(Lu et al., 2010) PT3 I think members on the social commerce apps would not mislead other members deliberately.
PT4 I think the information shared by the members on the social commerce apps is trustworthy.
System trust towards social commerce apps ST1 I believe that the social commerce apps have the skills and expertise to meet most customer needs.
(Lu et al., 2010; Pennington et al., 20- ST2 I believe that the social commerce apps have the skills and expertise to provide quality service to buyers and sellers.
03) ST3 I believe that the social commerce apps make good-faith efforts to address most users’ concerns.
ST4 I believe it’s safe to make purchase on the social commerce apps.
Social WOM intention (Kim & Park, 2013) SR1 I would like to provide others with my shopping experiences on the social commerce apps.
SR2 I would like to share positive things about the social commerce apps with others.
SR3 I would like to recommend the social commerce apps to my friends.
SR4 I would like to recommend the social commerce apps to my acquaintances.
Social shopping intention SS1 I will consider the shopping experiences of other members on the social commerce apps before purchasing.
(Liang et al., 2011) SS2 I am willing to buy the products recommended by other members on the social commerce apps.
SS3 I will consider buying this product in the future by browsing the other members' referrals.
SS4 It is likely that I will actually purchase products on the social commerce apps by browsing the other members' referrals.

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