The Role of Trust in Business-to-Business Electronic Commerce in Singapore

The Internet is a global and borderless environment, and it will be a challenge having to identify and trust the other party whom one is transacting with. Developing and communicating trustworthiness to one’s business partners is crucial at a time when business opportunities in e-commerce are flourishing. The objective of this study is to examine the role that trust plays and the extent to which it drives business-to-business e-commerce participation in Singapore. Indeed, knowledge of the role of trust, in its specific dimensions, will be useful to businesses in meeting the future competitive pressures surrounding it in the ecommerce context. Trading partner trust and electronic trust are examined as the independent variables of participation. The results demonstrated that both trading partner trust The Role of Trust in Business-to-Business Electronic Commerce in Singapore 20 and electronic trust are significantly related to participation in e-commerce. Furthermore, of the three dimensions of trading partner trust, keeping commitments, negotiating honestly and taking advantage, the data suggests that keeping commitments may comparatively be the more important driving force of trust.