Trust and Risk in Consumer Acceptance of e-Services: A Meta-Analysis and a Test of Competing Models

Consumer perceptions of risk and their trust beliefs are considered amongst the most important psychological states influencing online behavior. Despite the number of empirical studies that have explored the effects of trust and risk perceptions on consumer acceptance of e-services, the field remains fragmented and the posited research models are contradictory. To address this problem, we examined how trust and risk influence consumer acceptance of e-service through a meta-analysis of 52 studies followed by tests of competing causal models. The findings confirm that trust and risk are important to e-service acceptance but trust has a stronger effect size. We found that certain effect sizes were moderated by such factors as the consumer population under study, the type of e-service, and the object of trust under consideration. The data best supports the causal logic that positions trust as antecedent to risk perceptions. Risk partially mediates the effects of trust on acceptance.