An Examination of Trust Production in Computer-Mediated Exchange

In this paper, we apply principles of trust derived mostly from interpersonal communication and human-computer interaction research to computer-mediated exchange (CME). We define key terms and synthesize relevant literature identifying four sources and seven dimensions of trust. Combining these sources and dimensions, we offer a trust taxonomy enabling trust analysis of exchange partners in CME. To demonstrate the usefulness of the taxonomy, we report on a case study in which we examined trust production methods in three exchange sites and compared the results.