The authors develop a conceptual model that links Web site and consumer characteristics, online trust, and behavioral intent. They estimate this model on data from 6831 consumers across 25 sites from eight Web site categories, using structural equation analysis with a priori and post hoc segmentation. The results show that the influences of the determinants of online trust are different across site categories and consumers. Privacy and order fulfillment are the most influential determinants of trust for sites in which both information risk and involvement are high, such as travel sites. Navigation is strongest for information-intensive sites, such as sports, portal, and community sites. Brand strength is critical for high-involvement categories, such as automobile and financial services sites. Online trust partially mediates the relationships between Web site and consumer characteristics and behavioral intent, and this mediation is strongest (weakest) for sites oriented toward infrequently (frequently) purchased, high-involvement items, such as computers (financial services).

Online trust is important in both business-to-business and business-to-consumer e-business. Consumers and businesses, feeling the pressure of economic downturn and terrorism, increasingly look to buy from and do business with organizations with the most trusted Web sites and electronic networks. Companies' perception of online trust has steadily evolved from being a construct involving security and privacy issues on the Internet to a multidimensional, complex construct that includes reliability/credibility, emotional comfort and quality for multiple stakeholders such as employees, suppliers, distributors and regulators, in addition to customers. Further, trust online spans the end-to-end aspects of e-business rather than being just based on the electronic storefront. Based on a review of selected studies, we propose a stakeholder theory of trust, articulate a broad conceptual framework of online trust including its underlying elements, antecedents, and consequences, and propose some promising future research avenues in online trust. This paper will help information systems professionals better understand the online trust perspectives of multiple stakeholders, the antecedents and consequences, thereby enabling them to build more trustworthy Web sites. q

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Explosive growth of information technologies (IT) has prompted interest in examining the role of IT in new product development (NPD). Through desk-top software and web-based tools, IT has been used to aid idea generation and product testing as well as for NPD activities such as process and portfolio management. Recent research suggests, however, that a gap exists between IT availability and usage. Given the importance of IT in creating business value through the development of new products and services, this study seeks to identify factors that affect IT usage. Further, anecdotal evidence and conceptual studies intimate that the usage of IT tools for NPD can shorten time to market, improve product quality, and increase productivity. However, empirical substantiation of this impact is mostly non-existent. The current study investigates the relationship between IT usage and two measures of new product performance, speed to market and market performance.Employing a mail survey methodology, our study uses data from a sample of practitioner members from the Product Development & Management Association (PDMA) to examine the effect of project risk, existence of a champion, autonomy, innovative climate, IT infrastructure, and IT embeddedness on the extent of IT usage.