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The purpose of this paper is to examine an integrated model of factors affecting attitudes toward online shopping in Jordan. The paper introduces an integrated model of the roles of perceived website reputation, relative advantage, perceived website image, and trust that affect attitudes toward online shopping.

A structured and self-administered online survey was employed targeting online shoppers of a reputable online retailer in Jordan; MarkaVIP. A sample of 273 of online shoppers was involved in the online survey. A series of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were used to assess the research constructs, unidimensionality, validity, and composite reliability (CR). Structural path model analysis was also used to test the proposed research model and hypotheses.

The empirical findings of this study indicate that perceived website reputation, relative advantage, perceived website image, and trust have directly and indirectly affected consumers’ attitudes toward online shopping. Online consumers’ shopping attitudes are mainly affected by perceived relative advantage and trust. Trust is a product of relative advantage and that the later is a function of perceived website reputation. Relative advantage and perceived website reputation are key predictors of perceived website image. Perceived website image was found to be a direct predictor of trust. Also, the authors found that 26 percent of variation in online shopping attitudes was directly caused by relative advantage, trust, and perceived website image.

The research examined online consumers’ attitudes toward one website only therefore the generalizability of the research finding is limited to the local Jordanian website; MarkaVIP. Future research is encouraged to conduct comparative studies between local websites and international ones, e.g., Amazon and e-bay in order to shed lights on consumers’ attitudes toward both websites. The findings are limited to online shoppers in Jordan. A fruitful area of research is to conduct a comparative analysis between online and offline attitudes toward online shopping behavior. Also, replications of the current study’s model in different countries would most likely strengthen and validate its findings. The design of the study is quantitative using an online survey to measure online consumers’ attitudes through a cross-sectional design. Future research is encouraged to use qualitative research design and methodology to provide a deeper understanding of consumers’ attitudes and behaviors toward online and offline shopping in Jordan and elsewhere.

The paper supports the importance of perceived website reputation, relative advantage, trust, and perceived web image as keys drivers of attitudes toward online shopping. It further underlines the importance of relative advantage and trust as major contributors to building positive attitudes toward online shopping. In developing countries (e.g. Jordan) where individuals are generally described as risk averse, the level of trust is critical in determining the attitude of individuals toward online shopping. Moreover and given the modest economic situation in Jordan, relative advantage is another significant factor affecting consumers’ attitudes toward online shopping. Indeed, if online shopping would not add a significant value and benefits to consumers, they would have negative attitude toward this technology. This is at the heart of marketing theory and relationship marketing practice. Further, relative advantage is a key predictor of both perceived website image and trust and the later is a major driver of attitudes toward online shopping. Online retailers’ executives and managers can benefit from such findings for future e-marketing strategies and retaining customers to achieve long-term performance objectives.

This paper is one of the early empirical endeavors that examined factors affecting attitudes toward online shopping in Jordan. This study provides evidence on the factors that determine online shoppers’ attitudes as an antecedent to consumers purchase decisions. From a theoretical perspective, this study contributes to the existing body of knowledge by revealing the sort of cause and effect relationships among relative advantage, perceived website reputation, perceived website image, in addition to trust, and their effect on consumers’ attitudes toward online shopping. Moreover, this paper is one of handful research that has distinguished between perceived website image and perceived website reputation along with their relationships and more specifically in the context of online shopping. From an international e-marketing perspective, online retailers planning to expand their operations to include Jordan or the MENA Region have now valuable empirical evidence concerning the predictors of online shopping attitudes and online shoppers’ behavior upon which e-marketing strategies are formulated and implemented.

This paper aims to study user acceptance of one of the Malaysian e-government services known as MyEG via a theoretical framework. The results are compared to a similar research conducted in Singapore. The motivation and benefits derived from this research can be used to improve the overall quality of services provided by MyEG and to enhance the efficiency as well as accountability of this e-government service.

This research was conducted by applying a theoretical framework known as technology acceptance model involving several factors such as intention to use, perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, image, compatibility and trust. The research data were then validated by examining similar factors that had significance results, followed by the development of a simple prototype.

The results obtained from this research would be beneficial to enhance the level of adoption among the citizens in Malaysia. The identification of the different factors influencing the acceptance levels of users can also provide a better vision on the end-user perspective for MyEG developers and lead them to achieve better results in future platform developments. In addition, this study also fills the current existing gap in e-government research of Malaysia and contributes to the literature on the public users’ perspective of e-government services.

The results from this research would provide effective guidance to developers of e-government platforms to include specific criteria that would attract the general public in using the platforms.

Besides that, it provides a new perspective from the general public on their interest to use any e-government platform specifically MyEG.

The findings of this research would assist in the improvement of the implementation and adoption of the current MyEG system. Besides that, this research will allow researchers to gain new insights about e-government services and apply the knowledge to further improve the current and other platform development.

The purpose of this paper is to validate the conceptual model that presents the determinants of Tier 2 consumer’s online shopping attitude and the interrelationships among the constructs across the three Tier 2 cities in India.

The paper uses survey-based data from three Tier 2 cities of North India – Kota, Agra and Jalandhar and uses a combination of statistical techniques to assess psychometric properties of the scales and conduct the measurement and structural invariance.

The findings of the paper reveals that technology readiness, consumer innovativeness, fondness for branded products and perceived brand unavailability act as determinants of online shopping attitude and there is a positive relationship between online shopping attitude and online purchase intention among Tier 2 consumers in India while perceived offline hedonic value do not have any significant impact.

Future researchers can use this model with additional confidence given its cross-segment robustness.

Online marketers can use the antecedents identified in this study to develop and encourage positive online shopping attitude in small town India.

This research paper is the first one that investigated online shopping attitudes of Indian Tier 2 consumers. Importantly, it validated the determinants of online shopping attitude among Tier 2 consumers. National and international e-tailers aiming to develop and expand their operations to India now have the critical empirical verification concerned with the determinants of online shopping attitude and behaviour in India which would be meaningful to develop a sound marketing strategy.

Drawing upon the Elaboration Likelihood Model, the purpose of this paper is to examine how the characteristics of social media moderate the effect of a firm’s apology on the attitude of its customers.

An online experiment including 360 active users of internet was employed to test the research model.

Results revealed that an after-crisis apology and firm reputation both have a positive effect on after-crisis user attitude toward the firm. Furthermore, the positive effect of apology becomes stronger as online media interactivity increases, whereas the positive effect of reputation becomes weaker.

This study included only one important characteristic of social media, and experimental scenarios were limited to car recall crisis. Considering that social media has so many platforms that may have different kinds of interactivity, further studies can be conducted to figure out the most suitable social media for firms to deal with an online crisis.

The results inform managers of the importance of after-crisis apology and firm reputation. It is worthwhile for managers to find out the levels of online media interactivity at which users focus on apology and reputation and accordingly conduct an effective online crisis management response strategy.

This study extends the literature on online crisis management and the literature on ELM by highlighting the role of online media interactivity in influencing the persuasive effectiveness of firm’s crisis response in the context of social media.

The coronavirus pandemic has created a new wave of first-time online shoppers in both industrialized and emerging countries. More interestingly, scholars and practitioners expect this transition to online shopping to eventually persist in the next few years. The current research study aims to investigate the factors explaining attitudes toward online shopping. The authors propose an integrated model in which trust mediates the effects of relative advantage and electronic word of mouth (eWOM) on attitudes toward online shopping. The moderating effect of gender was also assessed using the multigroup analysis (MGA).

Based on data collected from 378 Moroccan online shoppers, the authors empirically tested the hypothesized model using a partial least squares (PLS) estimation.

First, relative advantage, eWOM and trust significantly impact consumer attitudes toward online shopping; at the same time, trust is influenced by relative advantage and eWOM. Second, results confirm that trust mediates the effects of relative advantage and eWOM on attitudes toward online shopping. Third, the MGA reveals that female consumers tend to exhibit a stronger effect of eWOM on trust and on attitudes toward online shopping.

Most relevant studies have focused on the main predictors of attitudes toward online shopping but did not suggest mediating and moderating factors that can help in explaining indirect effects. The present paper bridges a gap pertaining to antecedents of attitudes toward online shopping by incorporating the mediating effect of online trust. The authors also examine gender disparities related to the predictors of trust and consumer attitudes toward online shopping. This study is the first of its kind to investigate the antecedents of attitudes toward online shopping in an African country.

Drawing upon the consistency literature, the theory of visual rhetoric and social judgment of warmth and competence, this study examines the determinants and impacts of perceived interface design consistency in the context of charity websites.

To identify design factors of perceived interface design consistency, this study separates charity website interface design into two aspects: main appeal design (i.e. appeal quality) and peripheral design (i.e. image type). The authors designed a two (appeal quality: low vs high) × three (image type: control vs adults vs children) controlled lab experiment to investigate the effects of various interface choices. A total of 217 subjects participated in the experiment. The authors used structural equation model (SEM) analysis and analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) to test the research hypotheses.

This study found that appeal quality and human images increase perceived interface design consistency. The authors also found that the relationship between appeal quality and perceived interface design consistency is moderated by image type. Finally, the authors showed that perceived interface design consistency increases perceived warmth and competence of charity websites, which in turn affect intention to use the website for donations.

The authors’ findings provide novel insights for theory on consistency and interface design and practical implications for charity website designers by identifying determinants and consequences of perceived interface design consistency.

The purpose of this paper is to assess whether the image of a retailer – beyond the distinct contributions of the website and the stores ‐ is improved by the perceived congruence of its channels, and for what types of customers.

An online survey was conducted on 1,478 customers taken from the behavioural databases of a major French multichannel retailer. Structural modelling and one‐way ANOVA were used to test the working hypotheses.

Congruent channels improve retailer image even when these channels have a less good image. However, channel congruence cannot be elevated to a universal guiding principle as it only affects multichannel and online buyers, with no detrimental impact on retailer image.

The study is mainly limited by the type of retailer studied, and the choice of an online questionnaire, limiting the representativeness of the offline purchasers.

In order to improve its image, a multichannel retailer must seek maximum congruence of its website and stores. Congruent channels lead to benefits for the retailer even when they are poorly valued by consumers.

Despite a broad theoretical consensus, this is the first study to demonstrate empirically that website and store congruence improves retailer image, and not only online purchase intentions. It is also one of the first published researches that uses congruence as a mediating variable.

This paper aims to investigate factors affecting small business owner/managers' adoption of country‐specific business websites.

A survey questionnaire was sent to a selected sample of 300 small businesses in the Northwest of England. In total, 55 responded with complete and usable answers, representing a response rate of 18.33 per cent.

The results indicate that perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use positively affect the adoption of country‐specific business websites. Furthermore, perceived company image in a foreign market and perceived transaction benefits were found to be significant antecedents of the perceived usefulness of country‐specific business websites.

The research sample is relatively small, and limited to small businesses located in the Northwest region of the UK. Emergent results are not necessarily representative of the wider small business population of the UK.

The results of this research study would be of benefit to owner/managers who intend to expand into international niche markets by adopting country‐specific business websites.

This paper extends the theoretical framework of the website acceptance model (WAM) in the context of small businesses, by distinguishing two factors that influence the perceived usefulness of having a country‐specific website.

No other research analyzes the formation of overall satisfaction across channels, including the reciprocal interactions between store and website satisfaction and the factors that moderate them. Therefore, the aim of the present study is to examine how overall customer satisfaction is formed from the image and perceived congruence of the two main existing channels and the satisfaction induced by each.

The online study covers 909 customers of a French mortar-to-click retailer specializing in women's and children's clothing. The conceptual model incorporates reciprocal interdependence between store satisfaction and website satisfaction. This model is tested using the procedure specific to non-recursive structural equation model.

Overall satisfaction with the retailer is not only generated by satisfaction with the store and the website, but also directly and indirectly by the image of each channel. The contribution of the variables depends on the personal and situational characteristics of the customer. Not only is the relationship confirmed from store satisfaction to website satisfaction, but for the first time, in rarer cases the reverse is also observed. On the other hand, while the perceived congruence of channels can improve satisfaction with the channel for certain types of customers, in other cases the congruence can also worsen customers' overall satisfaction.

The detailed analysis of the formation of this satisfaction shows the pre-eminence of the customer over the retailer's initiatives. A retailer may facilitate or encourage virtuous interaction between retailer's channels by making the transfer of information and products more fluid (click and collect for example); but in the end, the customer is the one who decides whether or not to bring the channels closer together.

Contrary to what the literature assumes, in some cases, the retailer's attempt to integrate the channels may even reduce overall satisfaction if customers do not want this integration, just as a high level of satisfaction on the website can reduce in-store satisfaction.

This study aims to evaluate the significance of the corporate website favorability notion and examines its factors in developing competitive advantage in the context of retail and service settings in the UK and Russia.

Based on the attribution, social identity and signaling theories, this study adopted the qualitative exploratory approach by conducting 14 interviews with retail experts and eight focus groups with retail users in the UK and Russia, combined with experts in website design, communication and marketing.

The study findings indicated that it is crucial to build and maintain a favorable corporate website that reveals the corporate identity as part of the overall company strategy. The study suggests that navigation, visual, information, usability, customization, security, availability, website credibility, customer service, perceived corporate social responsibility and perceived corporate culture are the factors of corporate website favorability that contribute to the company’s competitive advantage. The findings show that consumers from Russia as well as from the UK found the significance of a favorable corporate website (i.e. corporate website favorability), as well as the factors affecting corporate website favorability. However, consumers in the UK are more critical and demanding in the level of expectation of the website overall and put more weight than consumers from Russia on the perceived corporate social responsibility, perceived corporate culture, customer service and website credibility.

Corporate website favorability should be adopted by the companies, as part of the overall corporate identity management. Furthermore, it is advised to take into consideration the variations in the level of importance of the factors of corporate website favorability in different countries. The findings of this study suggest that this investigation will make a considerable managerial contribution to the understanding of a company’s decision-makers, communication professionals and website specialists about the building of a favorable corporate website in line with corporate identity strategy of the company.

There has been little systematic study of the effect of corporate websites on consumer evaluations of the websites; also, there is a lack of research with regard to the factors that contribute to the development of a favorable corporate website (i.e. corporate website favorability). This is the first study of its kind to find the effect of corporate website favorability in Russia, representing a non-western country, and the UK, representing a western country. Therefore, it contributes to the corporate visual identity literature by presenting the corporate website favorability construct and demonstrating the factors that influence corporate website favorability.