Trust as Fetish: A Critical Theory Perspective on E-Commerce Trust

Research on trust in e-commerce typically views trust as an important condition of successful commercial exchange. It aims to identify relevant factors of trust and establish how these influence potential buyers' decisions to interact with vendors. The aim is to provide ways of increasing trust. This paper questions the validity of this traditional approach to trust in e-commerce. It criticizes the fact that the concept of trust which underlies mainstream e-commerce trust research is too narrow to be of use, particularly because it neglects important aspects of human relations such as morality and ethics. Using the theoretical lens of Critical theory, the paper argues that mainstream trust research in information systems displays signs of ideology, commodification, and reification with regards to trust and thus treats trust as a fetish. In order to support this assertion, the paper describes a critical discourse analysis of some of the leading publications on e-commerce trust which supports the Critical contention. The paper concludes that Critical theory has a valuable contribution to make to e-commerce trust research. Taking the argument serious, however, cannot lead to a simple incorporation of some of the Critical aspects into ecommerce trust research. Instead, it requires researchers to fundamentally rethink their understanding of research and the role of research in society.