Sources of Trust and Consumers’ Participation in Permission-Based Mobile Marketing

The chapter investigates different sources of trust as factors affecting consumers’ willingness to provide companies with personal information and the permission to use it in mobile marketing. The chapter develops a conceptual model, which is tested with data from a survey of 200 young Finnish consumers. The data were analyzed by means of structural equation modeling (LISREL8.7). The main source of trust affecting the consumers’ decision to participate in mobile marketing is the company’s media presence, rather than personal experiences or social influence. Hence, mobile marketers should focus on building a strong and positive media presence and image in order to gain consumers’ permission for mobile marketing. Further, international research is required in order to investigate especially institutionally-based sources of trust in different regulatory and cultural environments.