The Importance of Technology Trust for B2B Electronic Commerce

Whereas the traditional notion of trust primarily focuses on trust in a trading partner, trust in e-business also incorporates the notion of trust in the infrastructure and the underlying control mechanisms (technology trust), which deals with transaction integrity, authentication, confidentiality, and non-repudiation. We argue that value creation in B2B e-commerce is heavily dependent on technology trust. Given the absence of adequate metrics to capture the technology trust in B2B e-commerce, this research develops and validates measures for technology trust, captured both as perceived benefits and also as B2B e-commerce performance. Our empirical results strongly support the hypothesis that technology trust is essential for successful B2B e-commerce