Trust in E-commerce in Canada and the Baltic States: a Comparative Study Technological and Economic Prerequisites for E-commerce Growth

Adoption of the Internet by a critical mass of the world population (1.25 billion users as of 2007, according to Internet World Stats, 2007) has changed the nature and scope of commercial transactions. Increasingly more people worldwide engage in “buying, selling, transferring, or exchanging products, services, and/or information via computer networks, including Internet” (Turban, King, Viehland, & Lee, 2006, p.4). The total volume of e-commerce is growing by 15-25 % every year (Turban et al., 2006). However, countries differ in the degree of Internet penetration and adoption of e-commerce. Among the most often proposed reasons for these differences are national wealth and varying technological capabilities such as information infrastructure (Gibbs, Kraemer, & Dedrick, 2003) and Internet access costs (Wolcott, Press, McHenry, Goodman, & Foster, 2001).