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Effects of
The different effects of online customer
consumer reviews on consumers’ reviews
purchase intentions depending on
187
trust in online shopping malls
An advertising perspective
Jumin Lee
Department of E-business, Kyung Hee Cyber University, Seoul,
Republic of Korea
Do-Hyung Park
LG Electronics Inc., Seoul, Republic of Korea, and
Ingoo Han
KAIST Business School, Seoul, Republic of Korea

Abstract
Purpose – With the increasing influence of online consumer reviews (OCRs) on a consumer’s
decision making, online sellers have begun to embed the OCRs in their advertisements (OEAs). This
study has the following two research objectives: first, to investigate the effects of two types of (OCRs
vs OEAs) on consumers’ purchase intention from an informational influence perspective; second, to
investigate the effects of OCRs from a credibility perspective.
Design/methodology/approach – The data for this study are obtained from a two-way factorial
experimental research design. The factors included are the type of OCRs and the trust level of online
shopping malls. In addition, PLS test is used to understand the underlying effects of trust in online
shopping malls, credibility of OCRs/OEAs, and consumers’ purchase intentions.
Findings – The results show that OCRs are more influenced by trust in online shopping malls than
OEAs. The greater the perceived credibility of OCRs among potential consumers, the higher is the
purchase intention. When the trust in online shopping malls is high, consumers’ purchase intentions
influenced by OCRs are more favorable than those influenced by OEAs.
Originality/value – This study is an initial consumer endorsement research that uses OCRs to
extend the trust transfer theory and extends the interpersonal online trust perspective. For
practitioners, this study is useful in determining which type of OCRs is useful for marketing,
depending on the trust in online shopping malls. Moreover, the results of this study could aid in the
development of an e-commerce strategy using OCRs.
Keywords Electronic commerce, Consumers, Perception, Trust, Internet
Paper type Research paper

1. Introduction
With the exponential growth of e-commerce, consumers create a huge amount of
information, which influences other consumers (Brown and Reingen, 1987; Chatterjee, Internet Research
Vol. 21 No. 2, 2011
2001; Chen and Xie, 2008; Dellarocas, 2003; Godes and Mayzlin, 2004). Recent evidence pp. 187-206
suggests that consumer-created information has become a rather important influence q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1066-2243
for consumer behavior such as purchase decisions. Online consumer reviews (OCRs) DOI 10.1108/10662241111123766
INTR are part of consumer-created information by web site users who have already bought
21,2 the target product. OCRs contain information and recommendations of the products
from the consumer’s perspective (Park et al., 2007). Recent studies have investigated
OCRs as electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) that influences consumer behavior (Brown
and Reingen, 1987; Chatterjee, 2001; Chen and Xie, 2008). For example, people make
purchasing decisions based on consumer-created information over the Internet (Godes
188 and Mayzlin, 2004) and rely on Internet postings to make decisions that range from
which movie to watch to which stocks to invest in (Dellarocas, 2003).
Online sellers have discovered the effect of OCRs and are trying to use these OCRs
to advertise in online shopping malls as consumer endorsements that have been used
in advertisements in other media, such as television and radio (Fireworker and
Friedman, 1977; Friedman and Friedman, 1979; Frieden, 1984). Consumer endorsement
is a useful advertising strategy in advertising. Typical consumer endorsements
significantly improve the overall attitude toward the product, thereby increasing the
expected price (Fireworker and Friedman, 1977). Thus, unlike traditional consumer
endorsements, online sellers can use OCRs without incurring a cost. While traditional
advertisers select people and interview them regarding their personal experiences,
online advertisers merely quote the body or certain parts of OCRs that are already
exposed in an online shopping mall. For example, Tom and Jane gave it a “Two
Thumbs Up!” or other members say, “It is awesome! Good choice because [. . .]”
Figures 1 and 2 illustrate examples of consumer review usage in online advertisements.

Figure 1.
An example of OCRs
embedded in
advertisement (copying
OCRs into advertisement)
 Effects of
customer
reviews

189

Figure 2.
An example of OCRs
embedded in
advertisement (quoting
OCRs into advertisement)

Sellers either quote the entire OCR in the advertisement (e.g., “many people who have
bought off me from eBay have lost weight with this product. Take a look at the
feedback comments taken directly from my feedback pages from people who have lost
weight [. . .]”) (Figure 1) or quote them partially (Figure 2). In this paper, OCRs that are
used in online advertisements are defined as OCRs embedded in advertisement (OEAs).
Several studies have considered OCRs from an information processing perspective
(Park et al., 2007; Lee et al., 2008). However, online sellers were unable to ascertain from
these studies whether or not the new advertisements using OCRs are more attractive to
customers. The key research questions of this study are stated below:
.
Do customers process OEAs differently from OCRs depending on the
trustworthiness of online shopping malls?
. Is it a good idea to use OCRs in online advertisements (OEAs)?
.
Which environments make the effect of the OEAs better than that of OCRs?

The above research questions will be comprehensively addressed throughout the

paper. From an analysis of previous research, the predicted answers of the
abovementioned questions will be hypothesized in the experiment. The remainder of
this paper is organized in the following manner. The next section describes the
literature reviews from informational influence perspectives and trust perspectives.
Section 3 presents our proposed hypotheses. Sections 4 and 5 explain the experimental
design and results of the experiment. The final section presents the research summary
and discussion, as well as implications for future research.
INTR 2. Literature reviews
21,2 Deutsch and Gerard (1955) introduced two types of social influence – normative and
informational influences. While a normative influence occurs when people conform to
the expectations of others, an informational influence is the tendency to accept
information from others as an indicator of reality. Individuals may either seek
information from knowledgeable others, for example, through OCRs, or make
190 references based on an observation of the behavior of other people or groups (Park and
Lessig, 1977). In the Internet environment, consumers do not need to conform to the
expectations of others when making a purchase, and they all have informational
influence that enables them to make good decisions (Dholakia et al., 2002). Therefore,
an informational rather than a normative influence is expected to play a central role in
influencing the purchasing decision of individuals (Huang and Chen, 2006). This study
focuses on informational influences.

2.1 Order of information presentation and the primacy effect

Online shopping malls have a general rule of information arrangement. The product
picture is located at the top and the advertisement including product details and OCRs
follows sequentially. The order in which a consumer receives and processes
information may affect the impact of the message because information is processed
sequentially over time (Crowley and Hoyer, 1994). The primacy effect reveals that
information that is presented earlier is more persuasive (Asch, 1952). Moreover,
primacy effects have been observed not only in the position of information but also in
the content of advertisements (Petty and Wegener, 1998). According to the primacy
effect, placing online consumer reviews first on the web page may be wise because the
recommendation may form a first impression and attract the users on the basis of what
is presented first. Consistent with this view, the anchoring and adjustment hypothesis
(Alba et al., 1991) also suggests that an initial positive attribute establishes an “anchor”
for subsequent evaluation. In online shopping malls, a product’s first impression is
more positive when sellers use OCRs in their product advertisement (OEAs) rather
than presenting it later, after product information (OCRs).

2.2 Credibility and challenges of online consumer reviews

Consumer endorsement in advertisements is of three types: celebrity, expert, and
typical consumer endorsements (Fireworker and Friedman, 1977; Kelman, 1961;
Friedman and Friedman, 1979). The endorsers are persuaded through the informal
influence of the process of internalization (Fireworker and Friedman, 1977; Kelman,
1961; McGuire, 1969). Internalization occurs when the receiver adopts an attitude
because it is useful for the solution of a problem or is demanded by his or her value
system. Further, internalization occurs if reference groups are considered credible
(McGuire, 1969). Consistent with this view, information from high-credibility sources is
likely to be more easily accepted (Bearden and Etzel, 1982). Credibility includes
expertise and trustworthiness (Hovland et al., 1953). Expertise is defined as the
perceived ability of the source to make valid assertions, and trustworthiness is defined
as the perceived willingness of the source to make valid assertions (Hovland and
Weiss, 1951-1952). The model indicates that sources exhibiting expertise and
trustworthiness are credible and persuasive (Atkin and Block, 1983; Kamen et al., 1975;
Klebba and Unger, 1983). Further, trustworthiness positively influences consumer
attitudes toward a brand, consumer intentions, and their purchase behaviors (Lascu Effects of
et al., 1995; Petty and Wegener, 1998). customer
Prior research has suggested that OCRs are likely to be more credible than
seller-created information (Dellarocas, 2003; Wilson and Sherrell, 1993). On the other reviews
hand, several researchers suggest that there exist some challenges related to
customer-created information (Dellarocas, 2003). These challenges are related to online
identity and feedback operating perspectives. In the online identity perspective, online 191
identity can be changed easily in an online environment. This leads to various forms of
strategic manipulation. Dellarocas (2003) provided some examples in this regard:
community members can build good reputations, take advantage of this by cheating
other members, and then disappear and reappear under new online identities and clean
records (Friedman and Resnick, 2001). Moreover, they can use fake online identities to
post dishonest feedback; thus, attempting to improve their reputation or tarnish that of
their competitors (Dellarocas, 2000). In the feedback operating perspective, the
questions are related to the trustworthiness of operators. Web sites may delete some
reviews from their web site or repeat reviews depending on their purposes. Therefore,
the influence of OCRs may be dependent on the credibility enjoyed by the web site. The
web site where OCRs are located forms the context; the effect of this is considered in
the trust transfer theory.

2.3 Trust in online shopping malls and trust transfer

A number of researchers suggest that the construct of trust is an important element in a
business environment (Anderson and Narus, 1990; Dwyer et al., 1987). Moreover, trust is
critical in facilitating e-commerce because the seller’s physical absence makes online
transactions more vulnerable (Lowry et al., 2008; McKnight and Chervany, 2001-2002).
Internet users perceive significant risks and uncertainties in transacting with an
unknown seller on a web site (e.g., Hoffman et al., 1999). Recent studies indicate that trust
is essential for the success of e-commerce activities (Crowell, 2001; Hoffman et al., 1999),
and trust in online shopping malls is central to e-commerce (Gefen, 2000; Reichheld and
Schefter, 2000). Moreover, trust could moderate risk in the buying process. The
moderating role of trust has been focused on in studies of interpersonal behavior in
organizations and marketing settings (e.g., Rousseau et al., 1998; Andaleeb, 1995).
According to trust transfer research, trust in online shopping malls could influence
OCRs as the context from which trust is transferred to individuals (Henslin, 1968;
Milliman and Fugate, 1988; Stewart, 2003). Stewart (2003) indicates trust transference
in the context of the world wide web. According to her, trust is transferred from a
trusted entity to an unknown target if the unknown target is perceived to be related to
trusted sources. Numerous other studies have also demonstrated that different types of
contextual factors such as society, organization (Milliman and Fugate, 1988), and
location (Henslin, 1968) may influence trust. For example, the cab drivers’ trust in
passengers is influenced by the location that is involved in an encounter. Further, a
salesperson could transfer the burden of establishing trust from him/herself to a “proof
source” by co-opting a prospect’s trust in an industry association (Milliman and
Fugate, 1988). The proof source offers verifiable evidence of the salesperson’s claims,
thereby influencing the client’s intention to purchase. General measures of establishing
trust have been investigated on the basis of the communications infrastructure of
society (Fisman and Khanna, 1999).
INTR 3. Research model and hypotheses
21,2 The strength of trust transfer is related to the correlation between the trusted entity
and another unknown target (Zaheer et al., 1998). Although OCRs are presented
independently of advertisements, online reviewers are members of online shopping
malls and have a history of making online transactions. Further, online shopping malls
provide space for additional information such as consumer reviews. Since trust is
192 transferred through contextual factors such as location (Henslin, 1968), trust in online
shopping malls may transfer to OCRs because OCRs are presented on the web site.
Moreover, trust in online shopping malls directly influences OCRs because online
shopping malls manage all aspects of their web sites, as mentioned above. If an online
shop is trustworthy, potential consumers may trust the online web site operation and
may feel that the information presented on the site is trustworthy (Park and Lee, 2009).
On the contrary, if a web site is not trustworthy, consumers are not likely to trust
information presented on the web site such as OCRs:
H1. Trust in online shopping malls positively influences the credibility of OCRs.
Sellers who use OCRs to advertise have a relationship with online shopping malls
because they make sales transactions at the malls and conduct business with these
malls. In such a situation, online shopping malls may be a “proof source,” and trust in
the malls is transferred to the sellers who advertise through OCRs (Milliman and
Fugate, 1988). At the same time, the trust in online shopping malls may sequentially
transfer to OEAs because of the expected relationship between the sellers and OEAs.
Customers perceive that the reviewers in an advertisement have a relationship with
advertisers for two reasons. First, advertisers could directly compensate reviewers
through traditional consumer endorsement on television or radio. Second, sellers
manipulate OCRs in terms of aspects such as the storyline and formats. In brief, the
trust in online shopping malls has an indirect, albeit weak, influence on OEAs through
the mediating trust in the seller; on the other hand, this trust may influence the
credibility of OCRs directly and indirectly. Therefore, the effect of trust in online
shopping malls is lesser on OEAs than on OCRs.
H2. The effect of trust in online shopping malls on OCRs is greater than on OEAs.
As mentioned earlier, OEAs could provide customers with advantages due to the
primacy effect, while OCRs could provide customers with advantages or
disadvantages due to the trust in online shopping malls. When the trust in online
shopping malls is low, the level of credibility of OCRs may rapidly decrease due to
trust transfer from the online shopping mall. In such a case, the fact that strangers
write OCRs could have a negative impact on consumers. Although the trust in online
shopping malls influences OEAs, the effect is mild because of the indirect relationship
between online shopping malls and reviewers, as mentioned earlier. Moreover, OEAs
have the primacy effect; therefore, when the trust in online shopping malls is low,
OEAs influence consumers’ purchase intentions more than OCRs:
H3. When the trust in online shopping malls is low, OEAs affect consumers’
purchase intentions more than OCRs.
However, as the trust in online shopping malls increases, OCRs are more credible as
compared with OEAs due to the direct effect of trust transfer from online shopping
malls. Moreover, another positive aspect that adds to the credibility of OCRs is the Effects of
independence from sellers. On the other hand, consumers believe that the effect of trust customer
transfer from online shopping malls is lower in OEAs and there is an expectation of
dependence on the sellers. reviews
Although OEAs have a primacy effect in a high-trust environment, the lower trust
transfer from online shopping malls and dependency on sellers causes the effect of
OEAs on consumers’ purchase intentions to be lesser than that of OCRs: 193
H4. With the moderation of trust in online shopping malls, the effect of OCRs on
consumers’ purchase intentions is not different from that of OCRs under a
condition where the trust in online shopping malls is high.

4. Research methodology
4.1 Experimental product and stimuli
The experimental product used in this study is a digital camera. This product has been
selected because most college students are familiar with a camera and can understand
its basic functions and characteristics. Moreover, a digital camera is similar to a film
camera; however, a digital camera is frequently upgraded with advances in technology.
Thus, consumers’ product reviews are useful to other consumers.
A focus group interview was conducted to decide the review quantity. The members
in the focus group interview did not participate in the main experiment. When
questioned “How many reviews are a moderate number?” the focus group answered
that when surfing online shopping malls, they generally read six to eight reviews of
three to four lines each. Thus, we selected the number six as a moderate number of
reviews. The length of each review was set at three lines. Each review included a title,
the reviewer’s name, and contents.

4.2 Design and subjects

This experiment had a 2 £ 2 (trust in online shopping malls: low and high; type of
consumer reviews: OCRs and OEAs) full factorial design. There were 135 subjects, and
they were randomly assigned to each group. Approximately 70 percent of the subjects
purchase products over four times in a year through online shopping malls.
The two types of consumer reviews (OCRs and OEAs) in this experiment contain
the same information but are presented in different locations. One location is outside
and under the product advertisement (OCRs); the other location is within the
advertisement (OEAs) (Figures 3 and 4).
The better the perceived reputation of a company, the greater the trust customers
place in the online shopping mall (e.g., Jarvenpaa et al., 2000). A favorable reputation is
easily transferable and enhances the credibility of the vendor (Ganesan, 1994).
Moreover, a firm’s reputation is important in influencing a consumer’s trust toward the
firm (Chen and Dhillon, 2003). Trust in online shopping malls is manipulated through
reputation. A company’s reputation is ascertained through popularity and
award-records of the online vendor (e.g., “Most online users have purchased on this
site. Two awards: no. 1 online shop in Consumer Satisfaction Survey, Security Mark”).

4.3 Procedures and measures

The procedure used in the experiment is divided into three parts. First, the subjects are
given an explanation regarding the experiment and the online shop. In addition, they
INTR
21,2

194

Figure 3.
OCRs embedded in
advertisement (OEAs)

are told to continue the experiment at their own pace and raise their hands if they have
any questions. Second, each subject is asked to navigate to the online shop. The online
shop contains the target product advertisement, including a product picture and either
an OCR or and OCE. After viewing the online shop, participants are asked
manipulation check questions. The manipulation check of the trust in an online
shopping mall includes questions based on previous research (McKnight and
Chervany, 2001-2002; Pavlou and Gefen, 2004). These questions represent single
reliable factors for trust in online shopping malls (Cronbach’s alpha ¼ 0:900). After the
manipulation check questions, participants are asked to evaluate two dependent
variables: credibility on three seven-point bipolar items (Sternthal et al., 1978) and their
purchase intentions (Lang, 2000; Ekinci and Riley, 2003). These variables represent
single reliable factors for credibility of OCRs/OEAs (a ¼ 0:958) and purchase
intentions (a ¼ 0:859).
Here, it is necessary to control possible confounding variables for the improvement of
the internal validity of this study. The subjects in all groups should think that the content
and amount of both OCRs and OEAs are not different. In order to control the variables, the
perceived quantity of reviews is measured. Other variables that change the effects of
consumer reviews are the site name, product brand, prior product knowledge, and general
 Effects of
customer
reviews

195

Figure 4.
OCRs

attitude of consumer reviews (Hong et al., 2004). In order to control the effects, the subjects
were not given any information regarding the site and brand. Further, the measurement of
prior product knowledge is also considered as an item.

5. Results
The followings are the manipulation checks. Subjects perceived the differences
between low and high trust in online shopping malls (F (1, 133Þ ¼ 31:743, p , 0.01,
Mhightrustinonlineshopping mall ¼ 4:228, Mlowtrustinonlineshopping mall ¼ 3:272). Further,
subjects who read both types of OCRs perceive that the reviews provide a moderate
amount of information (M quantity ¼ 3:51, t ¼ 21:110, p . 0:1). Subjects who are
exposed to OCRs perceive that the reviews are independently located as compared with
consumers who are exposed to OEAs (F (1, 133Þ ¼ 6:087, p , 0:01, M OCRs ¼ 4:02,
M OEAs ¼ 3:23).
A 2 £ 2 ANCOVA is run with prior product knowledge in order to test the
credibility of OCRs/OEAs (Table I). Further, it is found that the covariate variable is
not significant – prior product knowledge (F (1, 130Þ ¼ 0:054, p ¼ 0:817).
INTR The main effect of trust in online shopping malls is found to be significant (F (1,
21,2 130Þ ¼ 22:590, p , 0:001), and the interaction between the trust in online shopping
malls and consumer review type is significant (F (1, 130Þ ¼ 18:804, p , 0:001).
However, the main effect of the review type is not significant (F (1, 130Þ ¼ 0:159,
p ¼ 0:691). Table II presents the means and standard deviations of the credibility of
OCRs/OEAs. Trust in online shopping malls significantly influences the credibility of
196 OCRs (t ¼ 25:720, p , 0:001), while it does not influence that of OEAs (t ¼ 20:361,
p ¼ 0:719). Thus, H1 is accepted. Further, the interaction of the type of consumer
reviews and trust in online shopping malls (F (1, 130Þ ¼ 18:804, p , 0:001) revealed
that trust in online shopping malls has a stronger impact on the credibility of OCRs
than on that of OEAs. Thus, H2 is accepted.
A 2 £ 2 ANCOVA was run to test purchase intentions (H3 and H4) (Table III), prior
product knowledge (F (1, 130Þ ¼ 0:795 p ¼ 0:374). The main effect of trust in online
shopping malls is found to be significant (F (1, 130Þ ¼ 25:414, p , 0:001), and
interaction between trust in online shopping malls and consumer review type is also
significant (F (1, 130Þ ¼ 4:774, p , 0:05). With an increase in trust in online shopping
malls, the effect of OCRs on purchase intentions is much greater than OEAs (Figure 5).
Further, the main effect of the review type is not significant (F (1, 130Þ ¼ 0:871,
p ¼ 0:352). Table II presents the means and standard deviations of purchase
intentions. Consumers’ purchase intentions are more influenced by OCRs when the
trust in online shopping malls is high as compared with when the trust in online
shopping malls is low (t ¼ 24:841, p , 0:001). The results are the same in the case of
OEAs (t ¼ 22:227, p , 0:05).
When the trust in online shopping malls is low, the difference in purchase intentions
influenced by OCRs and OEAs is insignificant (t ¼ 21:085, p ¼ 0:282). Thus, H3 is
rejected. When the trust in online shopping malls is high, purchase intentions
influenced by OCRs are more favorable than purchase intentions influenced by OEAs
(t ¼ 2:074, p , 0:05) (H4 rejected). This result indicates that the primacy effect of
OEAs is weaker than the trustworthiness of information sources.
Furthermore, partial least squares modeling (PLS) was employed in order to
ascertain the underlying mechanism of the influence of trust in online shopping malls
and credibility on consumers’ purchase intentions and to explore the mediating effect
of the source credibility of consumer reviews. The software program used to conduct
the PLS was PLS-Graph. PLS is a structural equation modeling technique. As
suggested by Chin (1998), although LISREL is more suitable for confirmatory research,
PLS is more suitable for exploratory research and requires fewer data sets.
In this study, the individual item reliabilities for all construct measures were found
to be higher than an acceptable level of average variance extracted – 0.50 (Hair et al.,

Credibility of OCRs/OEAs
F p

Table I. Prior product knowledge 0.054 0.817

ANCOVA results Type of consumer reviews 0.159 0.691
(credibility of Trust in online shopping malls 22.590 0.000
OCRs/OEAs) Trust in online shopping malls £ type of consumer reviews 18.804 0.000
 OCRs OEAs
Low High Low High
Trust in online shopping Standard Standard Standard Standard
malls Mean deviation n Mean deviation n Mean deviation n Mean deviation n

Credibility 3.070 1. 347 38 4.848 1.307 35 3.849 1.050 31 3.925 0.492 31

Purchase intention 3.728 0.958 38 4.8286 0.981 35 3.946 0.639 31 4.366 0.832 26

Means and standard

customer
reviews

experimental cell
deviations for each
197

Table II.
Effects of
INTR 1998). Ideally, correlations between two constructs must be smaller than the average
21,2 variance extracted of their respective constructs (Fornell and Larcker, 1981). These
results indicate that the constructs had acceptable levels of reliability. The results in
Table IV indicate that the correlations between any two constructs are less than the
square root of the average variance extracted by the measures of that construct (the
diagonal entries in Table IV). This result reveals successful discriminant validity.
198 It is evident that trust in online shopping malls has a positive relationship with
purchase intentions, which is supported by numerous previous studies (see Figure 6).
Further, while trust in online shopping malls has a significant positive relationship
with the credibility of OCRs, it does not have a significant positive relationship with
the credibility of OEAs. These results indicate that trust is not transferred from the
web site to consumers’ information in advertisements. The reasons for this could be
that consumers perceive that the relationship between the web site and OEA sources is
a weak and indirect one (Stewart, 2003). While the source credibility of OCRs positively
influences purchase intention, the source credibility of OEAs does not influence
purchase intention.

Purchase intention
F p

Prior product knowledge 0.795 0.374

Type of consumer reviews 0.871 0.352
Table III. Trust in online shopping malls 25.414 0.000
Results of ANCOVA Trust in online shopping malls £ type of consumer
(purchase intention) reviews 4.774 0.031

Figure 5.
The interaction effect of
review type and trust in
online shopping malls
 Effects of
Trust in online shopping Source Purchase
Constructs malls credibility intentions customer
reviews
OCRs
Trust in online shopping
malls 0.847
Credibility 0.542 0.894 199
Purchase intentions 0.635 0.532 0.948
OEAs
Trust in online shopping
malls 0.822
Credibility 0.322 0.754 Table IV.
Purchase intentions 0.209 0.184 0.809 Correlation and square
root of average variance
Note: Diagonal elements are square roots of the average variance extracted extracted of constructs

Figure 6.
Additional analysis –
path analysis

6. Discussion and conclusion

The objective of this research was to investigate how consumers process OEAs
differently from generally located OCRs, and to determine whether using OEAs is a
good idea or not. We consider trust in online shopping malls because credibility of
information depends on the context, such as online shopping malls, in the process of
internalization of informational influence. Moreover, the context effect is supported by
the trust transfer theory.
Trust is the most important factor in online business transactions such as online
shopping malls. It is evident from this study that when the trust in online shopping
malls is low, there is no significant difference in consumers’ purchase intentions
irrespective of whether the information is located within the advertisement. On the
contrary, when the trust level is high, information provided on the web site is
meaningful and influences consumers’ decision making and purchase intention. These
results support previous studies that investigated that trust in online web sites is
essential for the success of e-commerce activities (Crowell, 2001; Gefen, 2000; Hoffman
et al., 1999; Reichheld and Schefter, 2000) from an informal influence perspective.
Further, in this study, we tested the transfer of trust from shopping malls to
consumer reviews. It was found that trust is transferred from online shopping malls to
the credibility of OCRs more than OEAs. In other words, trust in online shopping malls
influences the credibility of OCRs; however, the credibility of OEAs is not influenced
by this factor. This could imply that potential consumers perceive the link between an
INTR online shopping mall and OEAs as being rather weak. Other consumers believe that an
21,2 advertisement presents unrelated information in an online shop. The reason for this
may be that consumers perceive the advertisement as being a mass marketing tool not
only for the online shopping mall, but also other web sites.
This research makes various academic contributions. First, this study is an initial
consumer endorsement research that uses the concept of OCRs (OEAs). Current studies
200 on OCRs have mainly investigated the effect of OCRs as word of mouth or a part of the
marketing communication mix (Lee et al., 2008; Chen and Xie, 2008), although
marketers are interested in the usage of OCRs and have begun using them in their
advertisements (OEAs). Thus, this study could initiate the usage of OCRs as a sales
tool for marketers.
Second, this study extends the trust-transfer concept to the online context by
applying it to OCRs. Trust in online stores has been investigated from the viewpoint of
institution-based trust (Pavlou and Gefen, 2004) among sellers. In sociology,
institution-based trust indicates that behaviors are situationally constructed
(McKnight and Chervany, 2001-2002). Such trust stems from the belief that
impersonal structures exist to facilitate and encourage trustworthy behavior in a
given situation (Zucker, 1986). Thus, situational trust is an important influence for
interpersonal trust (Stewart, 2003). This study indicates that situational trust occurs in
the context of OCRs, and that trust transfer occurs not only in the seller community
(Pavlou and Gefen, 2004), but also in customer community such as OCRs.
Third, this study contributes by introducing another perspective to provide an
answer to how trust can be built in a person-to-person context in a web environment.
As individuals are exposed to a huge amount of information and the expansion of their
participation is changing other people’s behavior, more research efforts are now being
spent in exploring the effect of trust in a person-to-person context in a web
environment (e.g., Xiong and Liu, 2004; Jøsang et al., 2007). Although a huge amount of
research has focused on building trust for electronic markets through trusted third
parties or intermediaries (e.g., Atif, 2002; Ketchpel and Garcia-Molina, 1996), it is not
applicable from a consumer-to-consumer perspective (Xiong and Liu, 2004). This study
has suggested another method of building trust among consumers in the context of
online shopping malls.
Moreover, previous studies suggested the building of trust in the person-to-person
and person-to-medium contexts in a web environment, such as reputation systems,
through social control by utilizing community-based feedback regarding past
experiences of consumers to make product recommendations (Resnick et al., 2000);
moreover, these studies also suggested the establishment of a trust supporting
framework to overcome the challenge of creating such a reputation-based trust
mechanism (Xiong and Liu, 2004). However, according to our study, these
trust-supporting mechanisms have different effects depending on the web
environment. Therefore, the context effect in web interaction can serve as an
extension-point for researchers of online reputation systems. For example, current
research indicates that trust and reputation systems among consumers used in
commercial and online applications have serious vulnerabilities, and it is obvious that
the reliability of these systems is occasionally questionable ( Jøsang et al., 2007). In such
cases, devising various methods for increasing the trustworthiness of web sites could
enable the reputation system itself to become more trustworthy in terms of not only
improving the web site’s reputation but also highlighting the web site’s efforts such as Effects of
providing additional information (e.g., various reputation results using new techniques customer
or mechanisms). Moreover, the visual aspects of a web site’s efforts to build trust could
be a new approach to influencing the establishment of person-to-person trust. reviews
Our findings have important business implications to online marketers who follow
the strategy of Amazon.com in terms of collective intelligence. Web sites may believe
that individuals undoubtedly trust OCRs more than seller-created information, and the 201
OCRs are effective in influencing consumers’ purchase intention. However, this study
reveals that OCRs do not have the same effect on consumers’ purchase intentions. On
the contrary, only trustful web sites actually benefit from customer-created
information such as OCRs. Therefore, these findings could encourage the
development of an e-commerce strategy using OCRs. In the initial stage of
e-commerce, online shopping malls are not popular and have few or no OCRs because
of a lack of customers. In this stage, a steady increase in the number of positive OCRs
could be a good sign of trust. However, it is difficult to increase the number of reviews
quickly in the initial stages of a business. Moreover, as indicated by as Dellarocas
(2003), before the web site actually enjoys some degree of trustworthiness, it is possible
that people consider the positive reviews to be fake ones. The results of this study
indicate that in such a situation, OEAs are a wise decision because they are barely
influenced by trust in online shopping and influence a consumer’s purchase intention
in a manner similar to OCRs. Further, advertisements use official space that is
promoted freely by sellers. Thus, sellers can use OCRs that are available in other web
sites. It is easier to quote OEAs than collecting OCRs in its own web site, and this will
provide an instant trustworthiness to the web site in the initial stages of its business.
With this strategy, the managers of online shops can continuously improve the
trustworthiness of online shopping malls. Moreover, online shops must ensure that
consumers trust the site by emphasizing their stable transactions using escrow service
and recommendations from third parties. As the web site gathers credibility and
accumulates a larger number of OCRs, using OCRs in advertisements becomes
unnecessary. The greater the trustworthiness of online shopping malls, the greater is
the persuasion power of OCRs. Thus, the positive impact of OCRs on consumers’
purchase intentions could provide online shopping malls with a good opportunity for
increasing sales.
Our study has certain limitations. Our sample comprised students, thus the findings
and contributions of this study are exploratory in nature. Future research must be
conducted by using samples of actual online shopping mall users. Further, this study
merely focuses on trust in online shopping malls as an antecedent of the credibility of
OCRs, while other factors such as the contents of OCRs could influence consumer
attitude and credibility. Research on other factors that increase credibility of OCRs
would be interesting. In addition, celebrity and third-party endorsements are important
in advertising (Dean and Biswas, 2001; McCracken, 1989; Tripp et al., 1994). It could be
interesting to study the effects of different endorsement types along with OCRs in the
OCR research area.
The results in the additional test using PLS suggest an interesting aspect in the
relationship between source credibility and purchase intention. Previous consumer
endorsement research in traditional advertisements suggested that source credibility
influences consumer behavior (e.g., McGuire, 1969). However, our results using PLS
INTR indicate that the source credibility of OCRs influences consumers’ purchase intentions,
21,2 while the source credibility of OEAs does not influence consumers’ purchase
intentions. This implies that the traditional effect of consumer endorsement from the
source credibility perspective occurs in the original type of OCRs; however, this effect
does not occur in OEAs. Although this study did not analyze the reasons and
underlying mechanism for this, it could be an interesting aspect for future research.
202
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About the authors

Jumin Lee received her PhD degree in Management Engineering from Korea Advanced Institute
of Science and Technology (KAIST), Korea, in 2007. She worked at Deloitte Consulting in Seoul,
Korea before entering the graduate school. She is currently an Assistant Professor in the
E-business Department in Kyung Hee Cyber University in Seoul, Korea and a Director of Korea
CRM Association. Her current research interests are online consumer behaviors including
knowledge sharing, online trust, and e-WOM. Her papers have been published in the
International Journal of Electronic Commerce, Electronic Commerce Research and Applications,
Expert Systems with Applications, and others. Jumin Lee is the corresponding author and can be
contacted at: juminlee@khcu.ac.kr
INTR Do-Hyung Park received his PhD degree in Management Engineering from Korea Advanced
Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) in 2008. His research interests include electronic
21,2 word-of-mouth, consumer behavior in electronic commerce, user behavior in social networks and
digital marketing. Currently, he works as Senior Researcher for LSR laboratory at LG Electronics
Inc.
Ingoo Han is a Professor at the Graduate School of Management of KAIST. He received his
PhD from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His papers have been published in
206 Decision Support Systems, Information and Management, International Journal of Electronic
Commerce, Expert Systems, Expert Systems with Applications, International Journal of Intelligent
Systems in Accounting, Finance and Management, and other journals. His research interests
include applications of AI for finance and marketing.

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