Research framework and hypotheses

The present paper follows the logic of TPB: beliefs－attitudes－behavior, presenting that consumers‘ beliefs lead to attitude toward FT that in turn leads to FT purchase intentions. In addition, in consideration of the online context, online information regarding FT knowledge, trust attitude, and the willingness or intention to share FT information were also incorporated into the proposed model as seen in Figure 3.1.

Figure 3.1 Proposed model

Consumer ethics involves doing the right or morally correct thing (Dodge et al., 1996).

It represents the broader treatments of ethical consumer behavior, including ethically questionable consumer behavior, consumer voting behavior, and responsible consumer behavior (Vitell et al., 2001). Among these ethical consumer behaviors, buying environmentally friendly and fairly traded products are the two most typical examples (Shaw and Shiu, 2002; Shaw and Newholm, 2002). The focal point of the present research is fair trade in which the theory of planned behavior (TPB) was applied by Shaw and Shiu (2002) to estimate fair trade grocery buying intention. In line with the beliefs－attitudes－

behavior model, Ferrell and Gresham (1985) also proposed that ethical decision making is influenced by individuals‘ values. Thus, one‘s attitude toward FT is presumed to be influenced by one‘s ethical beliefs.

Cognition-based trust indicates that individuals build their trust based on their instant cognition (e.g., social backgrounds, sense of values, word of mouth) or first impressions of others (McKnight et al., 1998). This initial trust formation is particularly relevant in an IS

Online

context. The context of e-commerce trust includes the on-line consumer‘s beliefs and expectancies about trust-related characteristics of the Internet merchant (McKnight and Chervany, 2002). Morgan and Hunt (1994) indicated that if individuals of virtual communities have a similar sense of cultural values, it is easier for them to build trust. One issue concerning the similar sense of values is the ethical component. McAlexander and Scammon (1988) pointed out that if customers perceive a service-provider as having certain ethical values, they will trust that service provider more. Since benevolence and honesty/integrity are important trusting beliefs which are closely related to ethical beliefs (McKnight et al., 2002), it is reasonable to hypothesize that consumers‘ ethical beliefs would dominate their trust toward the ethical contents (i.e., contents in FT website). Thus, the reasonable hypotheses are as follows:

Hypothesis 1: Consumer ethics positively influences attitude toward FT.

Hypothesis 2: Consumer ethics positively influences trust.

According to the traditional knowledge–attitudes–behavior logic, amount of knowledge is associated with attitude–behavior consistency (De Pelsmacker and Janssens, 2007; Fabrigar et al., 2006). Kallgren and Wood (1986) assessed attitudes toward protecting the environment, finding that attitudes based on high amounts of knowledge were more predictive of environment-related behavior. Likewise, FT buying behavior is determined by the general attitude towards FT issues, which, in turn, is determined by the level of knowledge about that issue (De Pelsmacker and Janssens, 2007). Based on previous studies, it is expected that one‘s level of FT information or knowledge impacts his

Next, traditionally, it takes time to build a long-term relationship between buyer and seller (Ganesan and Hess, 1997). However, cognitive trust is knowledge-driven; i.e., the accumulated knowledge allows one to make predictions regarding the service provider‘s action with some level of confidence (Johnson and Grayson, 2005). In e-commerce, the user‘s trust of a website is affected not just by the website but also the shopping experience, including company information, branding, promotions, security, and customer service (Lohse and Spiller, 1998; Nielsen et al., 2000; Fogg et al., 2001). Bart et al. (2005) found a positive relationship between website characteristics (e.g., information on the website) and online trust. Thus, it is reasonable to assume that providing sufficient FT information via the Internet would lead to consumers‘ trust of the web source. Thus, this study proposes the following hypotheses:

Hypothesis 3: Online FT information positively influences attitude toward FT.

Hypothesis 4: Online FT information positively influences trust.

The interest variable to a web-based retailer is consumers‘ behavior, especially their willingness to share information or referrals, or to transact via the Internet. However, it is difficult to simulate actual behavior in an experimental setting. Previous research has confirmed a strong correlation between behavioral intentions and actual behavior (Sheppard et al., 1988; Venkatesh and Davis, 2000). Numerous studies of technology acceptance have measured behavioral intentions but not behaviors (Agarwal and Prasad, 1998; Karahanna et al., 1999; Venkatesh, 2000). In addition, behavioral intentions are considered an adequate surrogate measure of actual behavior (Gibbons et al., 1998; Jones and Kavanagh, 1996).

Therefore, this study measures behavioral intentions (i.e., willingness to share information

and purchase intention) instead of actual behaviors.

The attitude toward business is often related to an individual‘s ethical beliefs and has a decisive impact on subsequent behavioral intention (Vitell and Muncy, 1992). Prosocial attitude is found to facilitate information sharing, especially with online communication mechanisms or online social networks such as virtual communities (Constant et al., 1996).

Moreover, a consumer‘s willingness to purchase from an Internet retailer is contingent on the consumer‘s attitude towards that store, and sometimes also based on their environmental attitudes (Jarvenpaa et al., 2000; Schwepker and Cornwell, 1991). In the specific issue of Fair Trade, attitude is confirmed to have a significant impact on FT grocery buying intention (Shaw and Shiu, 2002). From the above literature, the reasonable assumption is as follows:

Hypothesis 5: Attitude toward FT positively influences the intention to share FT information.

Hypothesis 6: Attitude toward FT positively influences the intention to purchase FT products.

Traditionally, mutual trust prompts the relationship between the buyer and seller (Solomon, 1992). Today, in a virtual environment, the existence of trust between individuals would make them more willingness to participate in a shared activity such as information exchange (Dirks and Ferrin, 2001, Mayer et al., 1995; Nahapiet and Ghoshal, 1998). Some researchers suggest that knowledge or information transfer exists in strong trust ties, while others believe that it can occur even in weak ties. In this situation, the

(Levin and Cross, 2004). For example, multiple texts, sufficient information on the same topic, or ethical related issues would lead to the pertinence of trust (Kasper-Fuehrera and Ashkanasy, 2001). In addition, the perceived trustworthiness of a source can affect the weight in the reader‘s overall comprehension over that topic or issue (Braten et al., 2009).

With sufficient and quality information provided from a reliable source, the receivers‘

trust over that issue can be built. In the Internet context, the more trust individuals have in the websites, the more willing they will be to share their information with community members (Wu and Tsang, 2008). Some research even concludes that trust is one of the major antecedents of willingness to share information or make referral (Law, 2008).

Once the trust exists, people are more willing to give useful knowledge, information sharing, or recommendations (Garbarino and Johnson, 1999; Shankar et al., 2002). Thus, trust building is the basic solution for increasing both online sales and online information sharing (McKnight et al., 2002). This reasoning leads to the following hypotheses.

Hypothesis 7: Trust of a Fair Trade website positively influences the intention to share FT information.

Hypothesis 8: Trust of a Fair Trade website positively influences the intention to purchase FT products.

Previous research has showed that there is a discrepancy between attitude and ethical buying behavior (MacGillivary, 2000). It is confirmed from a survey that most people hold a positive attitude toward FT products but only a few would purchase them. Besides price concern, other possible explanations are the lack of availability of ethical products and the lack of information (Carrigan and Attalla, 2001). As mentioned earlier, one‘s processing of

information about an ethical issue can predict one‘s beliefs, attitudes, and behavior (Shaw and Shiu, 2002). Past research also shows that if people are highly involved with a certain website (i.e., perceiving relevance of the website based on their values or interests), they are more likely to process the product information actively, such as gathering or sharing information (Schlosser, 2003); in turn, this high level of involvement is likely to lead to purchase (Jiang et al., 2010). This leads to the hypothesis:

Hypothesis 9: Consumer‘s willingness to share FT information positively influences the purchase intention of FT products.