Effects of cognitive and affective trust on online customer behavior

Purpose: Although prior works in online retailing have addressed the influence of trust on customer responses, they conceptualized trust as a single dimension. Based on social-psychological literature and sociological literature, this study proposes that consumer trust in an online retailer has two principal forms: cognitive trust and affective trust. The purpose of this paper is to examine various factors influencing the development of each form of customer online trust and the subsequent effect on customer satisfaction (CS) and loyalty intention (LI). Design/methodology/approach: Survey approach is employed to validate the research model. Data are collected from 334 Indian consumers and using structural equation modeling the causal pathways of the model are investigated. Findings: The results show that cognitive trust and affective trust are empirically distinguished variables in online retailing context. Cognitive trust and affective trust are found to mediate the relationship between perceived website quality, security and privacy policy, prior-interaction experience, perceived e-tailer reputation and shared value and CS. CS also positively influences LI toward the online retailer. Practical implications: The paper provides interesting insights about Indian consumers’ evaluation of online retailers. These useful insights would enable both international and national online retailers to develop and apply different strategies to improve customer trust, which is a key driver of CS and LI. Originality/value: Drawing from signaling theory and organizational studies literature, this paper investigates the relationship between different antecedents and affect-based and cognition-based trust in online retailing context. In particular, this is the first study to examine multi-dimensional nature of consumer trust in online retailing context. Besides, this paper clearly shows that cognitive trust and affective trust are the mediating variables that positively affect CS toward online retailers and help in building strong customer LI.