Interpersonal Trust and Technology Trust in Information Systems Research: A Comprehensive Review and A Conceptual Model

Abstract

Trust is a crucial factor in personal as well as online exchanges due to their impersonal nature. In the information systems discipline, past research proposed and tested interpersonal trust formation as well as continuance in several contexts. Extending beyond interpersonal relationships, trust has been extrapolated as technology trust and applied to various technology contexts such as recommendation agents, inanimate software and objects. This paper presents a comprehensive review of interpersonal and technology trust constructs as applicable to ecommerce and technology contexts. Based on findings from past research this paper synthesizes research on interpersonal trust, trustworthiness and trust modes, and proposes a combined model of trust constructs. Based on the literature review and results from past research, this paper identifies an important gap in literature and proposes bases of technology trust constructs as an important contribution to literature. The theoretical and managerial implications are presented.