Smartphones are increasingly penetrating business and consumer markets, and mobile applications (apps) have engendered a large and innovative market. Whereas apps are useful, they also present new forms of privacy risk associated with users' personal and location data. However, these dangers do not appear to increase the perceived risk or reduce the trust consumers demonstrate when using apps. Many information technology (IT) trust indicators are well documented such as the quality of the IT, trust assurances, brand recognition and social influences. However, these traditional indicators appear to have a lesser impact on the adoption of mobile commerce via apps because of the nature of mobile‐app adoption and subsequent information disclosure. As a result, we draw from social cognitive theory and its construct of self‐efficacy in particular to explain perceived mobile‐app risk and provider trust. Through two controlled experiments, we demonstrate the strong direct effect of mobile‐computing self‐efficacy on users' initial trust in location‐based app vendors as well as their perceived risk of disclosing information – regardless of the actual trustworthiness of the app vendor. The results imply that being skilled in the latest smartphones and apps can cause users to place greater trust in app providers and perceive less risk in the app itself, even when the intentions of the app providers cannot be verified.

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IntroductionWe are now well into a new platform and paradigm shift in computing: the explosive growth of smart phone and mobile devices use in the United States. For instance, recent reports indicate that the use of smart phones (cell phones with advanced capabilities for e-commerce and personal productivity) has reached nearly 30% of all cell phone users in the US (AdMob, 2010) and is expected to grow to almost 65% of the population by 2015.The rise of smart phones (and similar mobile devices such as tablets) has been symbiotic with the meteoric growth of mobile applications (henceforth Nearly 30% of US residents now use smartphones. The rise in the use of mobile devices has been symbiotic with the meteoric growth of mobile application marketplaces. Several industry reports indicate that consumers do not use most apps beyond the first 3 weeks of download. This poses an important question: what factors affect consumers' stickiness to apps? The goal of this study is to develop a framework of how various app features are likely to affect consumers' perceptions of interactivity and develop a set of testable propositions related to mobile application stickiness (MASS). The framework is built on the basis of a comprehensive review of inter-disciplinary literature on interactivity and online loyalty as well as qualitative data from focus groups and text analysis of mobile app reviews. The study provides key avenues for research into an exciting new phenomenon that is transforming modern business.

Purpose Trust and purchase intent are established, dependent variables in electronic commerce research. Recent studies have highlighted the importance of online product reviews in the development of purchase intention, which has led to the development of a substantial research effort in the realm of electronic word-of-mouth (e-WOM). The purpose of this paper is to incorporate e-WOM, information processing and decision-making theories to propose a model of the development of trust and purchase intention based on online product reviews, and incorporate information overload as a moderating factor. Design/methodology/approach This study tests the hypotheses using a scenario-based experiment. In total, 157 working adults were asked to read three hotel reviews of different information load. Upon completion, they were then asked to respond to Likert-based questions regarding their trust in the review and purchase intention. Findings An inverted U-shaped relationship exists between information load and both trust and purchase intention, where low-information load is ineffective at fostering trust and purchase intention, moderate information load is effective at fostering trust and purchase intention, and high-information load is less effective than moderate information load at fostering trust and purchase intention. Research limitations/implications Although the authors supported the inverted U-shaped relationship between information load and two outcomes, the authors only tested three different review lengths, resulting in limited precision, it is not clear where the inflection point is (i.e. exactly how many words results in information overload). Future studies might both seek more precision, and also consider more consumer characteristics, such as risk propensity. Practical implications Review platform operators with a stake in encouraging a sale should prioritize and highlight reviews of moderate length (which can be assessed automatically via word count), and consider restricting new reviews of products to minimum and maximum word counts. Originality/value This study enhances the relevant and growing body of online review research by: bringing uncertainty reduction theory to bear on the consumer’s information search efforts; using information overload, an important construct from classic information processing and decision-making literature to explain consumer behavior; and identifying a review characteristics (information load) which influences consumer attitudes about a review (trust) and the product (purchase intention). Finally, this study enhances research understanding of a specific experiential service: hospitality.