This study reports the results of an experiment that examined alternative forms of web assurance for “B2C” e-commerce. Specifically, using a repeated measures design, variations in purchase intent were examined across four within-subjects web site conditions (two MP3 players and two digital cameras from different web sites) and five between-subjects assurance conditions (undirected or directed retailer disclosures, VISA, TRUSTe, and WebTrust™). The effects of assurance (present vs. absent) on purchase intent were studied relative to the roles of retailer disclosures, information risk (security, disclosure, and product risk), and familiarity (with the retailer and product). Control variables encompassing previous Internet and online purchase experiences, general intent to buy online, and web site design were also incorporated in the study. No differences in intent to purchase were found for the three assurance conditions and they were combined for further data analysis. Results indicate that higher intent to purchase is associated only with web assurance when consumers did not observe retailer disclosures and product familiarity was lower. When consumers did observe retailer disclosures, intent to purchase was not significantly associated with web assurance. Results also indicate that familiarity with vendor and information risk were not associated with intent to purchase. However, several of the control variables, including comfort with the Internet, general intent to buy online, and web site design, were significantly associated with higher intent to purchase.
Graphs are frequently used as decision aids. When properly designed, graphs facilitate decision making by highlighting important trends and relationships in the data. It is all too easy, however, to design graphs so that they do not accurately portray the underlying data (Tufte 1983). Indeed, there is considerable evidence that annual reports contain such improperly designed graphs (Beattie and Jones 1992a, 1992b; Courtis 1997; Johnson et al. 1980; Jones and Beattie 1997; Steinbart 1989). This paper reports the results of three experiments that investigated the effects of such improperly designed graphs on subjects' choices. The results of all three experiments show that improperly designed graphs can alter subjects' choices. These findings not only have important implications for the design and use of graphs as decision aids, but also raise potential policy issues.
We report the results of a study involving 142 tax professionals designed to investigate the effects of decision aid design on information search (i.e., tax research) and confirmation bias. Results indicate that the participants exhibited confirmation bias when conducting tax research for clients. That is, participants showed a tendency to preferentially select information in support of their earlier recommendations to the client, even when the recommendation disagreed with the client's subsequent tax position. Results also indicate that while some decision aid features can reduce confirmation bias during tax research, others do not and may even enhance this bias. Specifically, a justification requirement decision aid reduced confirmation bias in terms of both the number and perceived importance of selected confirmatory cases, whereas a factor evaluation checklist decision aid either increased the bias (i.e., increased the perceived importance of cases) or had no effect on the bias (i.e., no effect on the number of cases). We suggest several decision aid design features for reducing confirmation bias in tax research.
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