Review of Literature and Theoretical Background

Abstract

This chapter reviews prior research on the concept of trust across various disciplines. First, the importance of trust for human affairs and communications is emphasized. This is followed by a discussion of the disciplines' different approaches to conceptualizing, defining and operationalizing trust. Subsequently, this chapter provides a classification framework of trust components which integrates interdisciplinary knowledge and on which further investigation of the trust concept in the domain-specific context of eWOM is based.