Technology fears: Distrust and cultural persistence in electronic marketplace adoption

Abstract

This study interprets fears towards technology use to account for the challenge of e-marketplace (electronic marketplace) adoption. The adopters' fears can be understood by analyzing both reliability-related and value-oriented distrust. While technical remedies may reduce reliability-related distrust by removing adoption barriers and restoring online trust, they may still be ineffective in overcoming value-oriented distrust. To analyze value-oriented distrust within the context of e-marketplace adoption, it is essential to examine how a society's socio-cultural structure affects economic activities. An insight derived from this study is that when an e-marketplace is adopted, such adoption includes not only the use of technology but also the transfer of the embedded trust-production mechanisms as well as the transformation of economic assumptions and cultural beliefs about how a market system operates. As distrust is rooted in cultural beliefs persisting over generations, this requires us to be sensitive to the need to reduce value-oriented fears so as to maximize the possibility of e-marketplace acceptance. © 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.