Does E-government trust in e-commerce when investigating trust? A review of trust literature in E-commerce and e-government domains

Abstract

Trust has been acknowledged to be an important determinant of e-commerce acceptance. Therefore, understanding the nature and importance of trust is momentous in promoting e-government adoption. This paper reviews the trust discussion in business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce and government-to-individuals (G2IS) e-government. The aim of the paper is to identify potential differences as well as common denominators in order to introduce aspects that could potentially mutually benefit the research in the e-government and e-commerce domains. The main findings of the study are: 1. both domains trust largely conceptualize as multidimensional construct. 2. In the e-government field, trust is more often also empirically investigated as more than only one variable. 3. In the e-government literature, two main discourses related to trust were identified; trust in government in general, and trust in e-government, referring to the technology aspects. © 2008 International Federation for Information Processing.