El papel de la reputación, el boca-oreja, la confianza y la incertidumbre en la contratación de un banco

What factors influence consumers to choose a bank with which to contract a service in a situation of information asymmetry? In this situation the firm has more information than consumers, and this fact generates consumer uncertainty due to a possible firm opportunistic behaviour. To reduce it, consumers can use, on one hand, signals that the bank sends to the market, such as reputation, and on the other hand, they can seek for more informal information, such as positive word-of-mouth communication from relatives and friends, to generate or increase trust, and through this variable, to develop an intention o contract with a specific bank and not others. Relations among those variables were tested with a sample of 155 bank users when they have not still worked with a specific bank. Results indicate the importance both of the reputation signal and of the positive information received of acquaintances and relatives to trust, but with differences according to the level of perceived ex_ante uncertainty moderate those relations.