The Impact of Internalization and Familiarity On Trust and Adoption of Recommendation Agents

We postulate that the relationship between a customer and a recommendation agent (RA) in agent-mediated electronic commerce will affect customer trust in an RA and RA adoption. The relationship between a customer and an RA is a relationship of representation and delegation, which is personal and close. Our research model conceptualizes that both internalization and familiarity will affect customer trust in an RA (including both cognitive trust and emotional trust), and that customer trust in an RA will affect the intentions to adopt an RA as a delegated agent or as a decision aid. Internalization refers to a customer's perception of how well an RA understands and represents her real needs. New measures of cognitive trust, emotional trust, the intention to adopt an RA as a delegated agent, and the intention to adopt an RA as a decision aid have been developed. The empirical study finds that internalization significantly and positively affects both cognitive trust and emotional trust in an RA. We are surprised to find that familiarity decreases emotional trust in an RA, and that it does not significantly influence cognitive trust in an RA. We also observe that both cognitive trust and emotional trust in an RA significantly and positively affect the intention to adopt an RA as a delegated agent or as a decision aid. Finally, it is interesting to learn that emotional trust fully mediates the impact of cognitive trust on the intention to adopt an RA as a delegated agent, and that emotional trust partially mediates the impact of cognitive trust on the intention to adopt an RA as a decision aid.