Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Abiola B Omoniyi
Abstract
E-commerce has been largely very successful and participation requires one to engage with whom
they have little or no prior interaction, this requires trust.
The role of trust in E-commerce has been researched and written about extensively, however, most
of the literature has focused mainly on developed economies and as such data and survey samples
have been taken mostly from these economies. This study intends to contribute to filling that gap by
researching key institutional safeguards that encourage initial trust formation between online
consumers and vendors and testing them within the Nigerian online environment.
Drawing from Institution based trust literature an integrated model of institutional trust was
developed. Nine institutional mechanisms influencing customer trust in e-commerce relationships
were identified. They are perceived feedback, perceptions of credit card guarantees, perceptions of
security, perceptions of monitoring, perceptions of legal bonds, perceptions of insurance,
perceptions of accreditation, perceptions of escrow services and perceptions of third party payment
services.
Nine Hypotheses were drawn based on the institutional mechanisms identified and their validity in
the Nigerian online environment and an empirical study was carried out to test them. Two Nigerian
banks were selected as case study debit Card issuers and data for the study was collected in Nigeria
by means of survey questionnaires and semi-structured interviews of the a senior banking officers in
each of the case study Debit card issuers (Nigerian Banks).
All hypotheses were confirmed. It was found that all the institutional mechanisms identified by the
study influence Nigerian online users' decisions to trust in an e-commerce relationship.
2
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank all those who assisted in the writing of this dissertation, with special thanks
to my supervisor for his guidance.
3
Table of contents
Abstract.............................................................................................................
Acknowledgements..........................................................................................
1.0 Introduction................................................................................................
1.1 Background....................................................................................
1.2 E-commerce in Nigeria..................................................................
1.3 Trust and e-commerce.....................................................................
1.4 Research question and objectives...................................................
2.0 Literature review........................................................................................
2.1 What is trust?..................................................................................
2.2 Importance of trust to e-commerce................................................
2.3 Effects of trust on e-commerce.....................................................
2.4 Initial trust framework..................................................................
2.4.1 Trust antecedents........................................................................
2.4.2 Components of trust...................................................................
2.4.1 Trusting beliefs...........................................................................
2.4.2 Trusting intentions.....................................................................
2.5 Institution-based trust and institutional mechanisms..................
2.5.1 Institution-based trust ..............................................................
2.5.2 Institutional mechanisms..........................................................
3.0 Conceptual Framework...........................................................................
3.1.1 Perceived effectiveness of monitoring.....................................
3.1.2 Perceived protection offered by legal
safeguards or legal bonds................................................................
3.1.3 Perceived effectiveness of escrow services
and/or third party payment solutions..................................................
3.1.4 Perceived effectiveness of credit card guarantees....................
3.1.5 Perceptions of feedback............................................................
3.1.6 Perceptions of accreditation and security measures ................
3.1.7 Perceptions of Effectiveness of insurance...............................
4.0 Methodology...........................................................................................
4.1 Research Paradigm......................................................................
4.2 Research Methods.......................................................................
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4.2.1 Case Study................................................................................
4.2.1.1 Case 1 - Guaranty Trust Bank ..............................................
4.2.1.2 Case 2 - Equitorial Trust Bank ............................................
4.2.2 Survey......................................................................................
4.2.2.1 Interviews.............................................................................
4.2.2.2 Questionnaires........................................................................
4.2.2.2.1 Questionnaire Preparation...................................................
4.2.2.2.2 Questionnaire Structure...........................................................
4.2.2.2.3 Questionnaire Distribution..................................................
4.3 Research data..................................................................................
5.0 Findings....................................................................................................
5.1 Findings from questionnaires...........................................................
5.2 Gender frequency.................................................................................
5.3 Age frequency.......................................................................................
5.4 Online purchase....................................................................................
5.5 Mode of online payments......................................................................
5.6 Institutional safeguards.........................................................................
6.0 Discussion ........................................................................................................
6.1 Summary of results.................................................................................
6.2 Implications and recommendations on results........................................
6.2.1 Perceived Feedback...............................................................................
6.2.2 Debit/credit card guarantees..................................................................
6.2.3 Perceptions of accreditation and security measures .............................
6.2.4 Perceived effectiveness of monitoring..................................................
6.2.5 Perceived protection offered by legal safeguards or legal bonds..........
6.2.6 Perceived effectiveness of third party services like
escrow services, third party payment solutions and insurance.........................
6.3 Research Limitations..................................................................................
6.4 Suggestions for future research..................................................................
7.0 Conclusion..............................................................................................................
References.......................................................................................................................
Appendix 1...........................................................................................................................
Appendix 2...........................................................................................................................
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List of tables and figures
Figures
Figure 1.0 Institution-based trust. Conceptual framework and research hypotheses..................
Figure 2.0 Institutional mechanism conceptual framework..................................................
Figure 3.0 Gender frequency....................................................................................................
Figure 4.0 Age frequency.........................................................................................................
Figure 5.0 Percentage of respondents who have made online purchases on Nigerian
websites......................................................................................................................................
Figure 6.0 Frequency of reasons for not making online purchases........................................
Figure 7.0 Frequency of particular online payment mode usages........................................
Figure 8.0 Frequency of respondent ratings of institutional safeguards........................................
Figure 9.0 Frequency of respondent ratings of institutional safeguards, ratings piled.....................
Figure 10.0 Total frequency of respondent selections of institutional safeguards....................
Tables
Table 1.0. List of Nigerian banks and their websites ............................................................
Table 2.0 Rank of institutional mechanisms................................................................................
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1.0 Introduction
1.1 Background
Forrester (2009) reports that in spite of the economic downturn, non travel related E-commerce
sales in the US continues to enjoy growth and is expected to grow by as much as 11% in 2009, this
is as web sales continue to capture brick and mortar store market share. Forrester (2006) also
reports that growth is also expected in Europe as well, as the number of European online shoppers
is expected to increase from 100 million to 174 million within the next five years, this is expected to
exceed even US online shoppers as e-commerce in Europe is expected to rise to €263 billion in the
year 2011. It is obvious that in spite of the problems that beset e-commerce like security, privacy
and fraud concerns, e-commerce has been largely very successful and shows no signs of abating.
According to Journal of Internet Commerce (2004) from June 2002 China a major emerging
economy became the third largest user of the Internet in the world following the US and Japan, and
according to Forrester (2009) this number will reach up to 275 million by 2012; greater than the
projected number of US internet users.
Forrester (2008) indicates that in spite of the economic downturn, emerging markets continues to
show significant potential for the tech industry as increased business and consumer use of the
Internet and information and communication technology drives infrastructure requirements in
emerging markets. That growth will continue and will no doubt have a positive effect on e-
commerce adoption and practice; the more people in emerging economies have access to computers
and the Internet, the more they are likely to adopt and practice e-commerce.
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GSM, CDMA mobile and landlines increased from just over 866,782 in 2001 to a staggering
67,253,407 as at March 2009, the fastest in Africa according to The Financial Times (2009b).
Things are set to get even better as private investors are investing $245 million in an undersea cable
known as Main One to start delivering world class broadband internet to Nigeria (The Financial
Times 2009c). This will no doubt boost the country's existing internet capacity and encourage more
online activity, which will in turn encourage e-commerce adoption.
It is important, however, to note that a vibrant middle class and availability of super fast internet
connectivity may not be enough to see the widespread adoption of e-commerce Nigeria, as it has
been argued that the biggest hindrance to e-commerce is not lack of technology, inadequate security
or lack of spending power but lack of trust in e-commerce vendors. For instance, it has been argued
that an important barrier to the spread of e-commerce is that at the most basic level there is a lack of
faith or trust between” (McKnight et al. 2000a, Jarvenpaa et al. 2000) most businesses and
consumers on the Internet. Peterson et al. (1997) is of the view that the issue of transaction security
is a short-term technological problem but the real problem centres on the amount of data consumers
are prepared to share which is directly proportional to the amount of trust that the consumer has in
the vendor.
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formation in e-commerce relationships. Theories on institutional structures will be examined and
from there hypotheses on institutional structures within the Nigerian context will be formulated
and will be tested against a sample Nigerian population. The primary justifications for this research
are listed below.
• There is currently limited research on the influence of institution-based trust to initial trust
formation in e-commerce with regards to developing countries,
• Nigeria has a population of over 135 million and it as well as other developing countries like
China and India are potentially lucrative new markets for e-commerce services,
• The creation of opportunities for further research into the role of institution-based trust in e-
commerce within the context of developing countries.
The questions that the research seeks to answer are listed below
• Do the theories on the role of institution-based trust in initial trust formation between buyers
and sellers hold true for Nigeria?
• And if so, what are the key institutional mechanisms that help to reduce customer
perceptions of risk and uncertainty in the Nigerian online environment.
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2.0 Literature review
2.1 What is trust?
According to McKnight & Chervany (1996), with regards to trust research a major source of
concern to many scholars and researchers is the lack of consensus regarding its nature and
definition. There is, however, near universal consensus on its importance and positive effects to
interpersonal relationships and this has led to trust being studied in many social science research
disciplines which in turn has lead to different scholars having considerably divergent views
regarding the nature and true definition of trust. Consequently, there now exists a broad spectrum of
definitions that tend to be narrow and based on the authors particular academic discipline.
McKnight & Chervany (1996) confirm the multiple views on trust, they argue that economists see
trust as a rational choice mechanism, sociologists see trust as structural in nature, psychologists see
it as a personal attribute, while social psychologists say that trust is an interpersonal phenomenon.
Because of the sheer volume of research on trust, it has been very difficult to define; for example,
McKnight & Chervany (1996) in their study on trust summarized numerous ways in which trust has
been defined from sixty research literature out of which eighteen were from management or
communication, nineteen from sociology, economics or political science, and twenty-three from
psychology or social psychology, and though the definitions showed similarities they were
distinctly different from each other.
However, for the purpose of this study we will adopt the definition proposed by Meyer et al. (1995)
which is the one most frequently cited definitions of trust (Rousseau et al. 1998).
Trust can be defined as the “willingness to be vulnerable to the actions of another person or group
of people (Meyer et al. 1995: 712) or the “willingness to take risk in a relationship” (Schoorman et
al. 2007: 646). This is based the optimistic expectations that the rights of the trusting party will be
protected in the relationship. This definition is particularly pertinent for relationships where the
trusting party has no control over the trusted party but nevertheless has to depend on them (Gefen
2002).
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information can be collected, stored and used with or without the customers knowledge, and the fact
that online customers believe they are constantly exposed to possible opportunistic behaviour by
online merchants like masquerading, unauthorized use of personal information or in extreme cases,
credit card fraud (Gefen 2000, McKnight 2002); moreover, the question of the legal jurisdiction of a
vendor is cited as well as an issue that can make if difficult for customers to trust web vendors
(Gefen 2002).
Generally speaking the nature of the e-commerce environment which is characterised by the
impersonal nature of the online environment, use of communication technology rather than physical
face to face interaction, and the newness and uncertainty of the transaction medium (Pavlou 2002)
makes for low degrees of customer trust in e-commerce as a whole.
Low levels of customer trust prevents online customers from making purchases from online
vendors, in some cases even stopping customers from “window shopping” at vendor websites, and
this is understandable since a customer would hardly be expected to do business with whom they do
not trust, and as such building trust is of major importance to online vendors (Gefen 2002).
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be formed without any prior interaction between a customer and a web vendor.
2.4.1 Trust antecedents
In their initial trust framework McKnight et al. (1998) propose that three types of trust are actively
in involved in the development of initial trust; they are as follows:
1.) Dispositional trust, which is the tendency to be willing to be dependent on others.
Disposition to trust has two components: (a) faith in humanity which is essentially
assumptions that others are usually upright, well-meaning and dependable, and (b) trusting
stance which is an assumption that she/he will achieve better outcomes by dealing with
people as though they are well-meaning and reliable.
2.) Institution-based trust, which is the belief that necessary third party structures are in place to
enable success in a given situation. Two types of institution-based trust have been identified
in the model. They include (a) situational normality, which is defined as the belief that
success is likely to be the case because the situation is normal, and (b) structural assurances,
which is defined as the belief that success is likely to be the case because such conditions as
promises, laws and guarantees are present and in place. This study will focus on institution-
based trust later in this literature.
3.) Cognitive trust, which is the trust that is based on impulsive, instinctive cues or first
impressions instead of personal interaction. There are two types of cognitive trust namely (a)
categorization processes and (b) illusions of control. Categorization processes which has to
do with the making of assumptions about the category or reputation of a trusted party, is
further split into three types which are (1) unit grouping, which means for the trusting party
to put the other party in the same category as him or herself (2) reputation categorization
which means to give a second party attributes based on information about the person and
(3) stereotyping which means to place a second party in a general category of people.
Illusions of control refers to the tendency of people in uncertain situations to try and assure
themselves that a situation is under their personal and full control by taking small actions.
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trusted party or in the case of e-commerce a web vendor in order to develop trusting intentions.
Several trust researchers agree that trusting beliefs are essential to customers developing trust
intentions and is composed of beliefs about the ability, integrity, and benevolence of the trusted
party (Mayer et al. 1995; Schoorman 2007; Gefen 2002; Jarvenpaa et al. 1998; Salam et al. 2005;
McKnight et al. 2002).
Perceived ability refers to beliefs about the skills and competence of the trusted party (Gefen 2002)
or in the case of e-commerce the belief in the perceived competence of the web vendor's product
design and quality, delivery and customer service among other things. Examples of companies and
websites which have favourable perceptions of ability are Apple, Hp and Microsoft which are
generally believed by the vast majority of customers to produce and deliver high quality innovative
products; and websites like eBay and Amazon which are generally perceived to stock and sell
quality products which are delivered on time as due. Web vendors must strive to create perceptions
of quality, dependability and competence with regards to their services in order to gain customer
trust.
Integrity is the belief that a trusted party conforms to generally accepted rules of conduct (Gefen
2002) or in the case of e-commerce the perception of a customer that a web vendor is honest and
keeps promises; promises such as the protection and only authorized use of customer financial and
personal information, promises to deliver goods on time, promises to refund customers for bad
products, or promises of accepting liability in the event of fraud on credit cards.
Perceptions of benevolence refers to the perception or belief that the trusted party apart from
wanting to make money from the business transaction wants to do the trusting party good (Gefen
2002). When we apply that to e-commerce, perceptions of benevolence takes the form of the
perception that the web vendor apart from wanting to make a profit from the transactions with the
customer also wants to do the customer good. The obvious advantage of this is because it pays the
web vendor to build goodwill and a relationship with the customer in which the customer feels like
his interest is at the web vendors’ heart. An example of this is the rewarding of customers with deals
or vouchers by a specific web site or vendor.
Schoorman et al. (2007) has suggested further research into affective responses and emotions as
additional trusting beliefs while Salam et al. (2005) lists predictability as well but because there is
appears to be a consensus regarding the validity of the first 3 components of trust listed above
(ability, integrity, and benevolence) in the literature that was studied, only they will be adopted for
this study.
Each trusting belief is essential to the build up of trusting intentions, as the negative perceptions of
any of the beliefs is likely to discourage a customer from transacting with the would be trusted
party; for instance, if the web vendor is found to be incompetent, breaks promises or lies to
13
customers, most customers are unlikely to want to do businesses with the web vendor.
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Zucker (1986) refers to institution-based trust production as the use of formal mechanisms
(institutional mechanisms) to provide trust that does not rely on personal traits or prior history of
exchange between two or more parties. This is very key to trust in e-commerce, for example,
according to Grabner-Kräuter & Kaluscha (2003) institutional mechanism are very essential to e-
commerce as they help to promote trust among trading partners and encourage consumer
confidence in conducting on-line business transactions. Further more Pavlou (2002) explains that
institution-based trust functions by reducing the perception of risk associated with online business
transactions thereby promoting initial trust build-up in e-commerce relationships. Pavlou & Gefen
(2004) argues that though institutional mechanisms may be “strong” (have legal backing e.g.
escrows and credit card guarantees) or weak or market driven (have no legal backing such as
website reputation). The effectiveness of institutional mechanisms lies rather in the customer
perceived effectiveness of the mechanism, even more so than the actual effectiveness or legally
binding nature of the institutional mechanism itself. This is because if a customer trusts and believes
in the effectiveness of an institutional mechanisms in facilitating a successful transaction within an
environment, she/he will likely be willing to take the plunge and transact online in that environment
regardless of the legal nature of the institutional mechanisms in place.
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3.0 Conceptual Framework
As can be seen in Figure 2, Pavlou (2002) offered a framework identifying key institutional
mechanisms available in B2B marketplaces. He proposed that the mechanisms are antecedents of
two dimensions of interorganizational trust which are credibility and benevolence which in turn
lead to three trust outcomes: satisfaction, reduction of perceived risk and continuity of online
relationships.
The five institutional mechanisms that were identified in his study were perceived monitoring,
perceived accreditation, perceived legal bonds, perceived feedback and perceived cooperative
norms. However, because the framework was created specifically for online B2B marketplaces, for
the purpose of this study perceived cooperative norms was ignored and the remaining mechanisms
were adopted because they are more general, can exist independent of any online community and
have equivalent mechanisms within the Nigerian e-commerce context.
Fig 1.0 Institution-based trust. Conceptual framework and research hypotheses by Pavlou (2002)
Additional institutions mechanisms like perceived credit card guarantees, perceived escrow services
and perceived feedback mechanism that were identified by Pavlou & Gefen (2004) as institutional
mechanism present in online auction market places, and others like perceived insurance (endsleigh-
business.co.uk), perceived third party payment solutions (paypal.com) and perceptions of security
(Chellappa & Pavlou 2002) which have been identified by other researchers were adopted as well to
16
develop the framework in Figure 3.0
perceived perceived
monitoring legal bonds
perceived perceived
accreditation feedback
perceived perceived
security insurance
Intention to
perceived perceived credit Institutional mechanisms transact on a Nigerian
escrow card guarantees positive influence e-commerce website
services
perceived third
party payment
solutions
Institutional Context
As can seen in Figure 3 the framework proposes that the following institutional mechanisms:
perceived monitoring, perceived accreditation, perceived legal bonds, perceived feedback,
perceived credit card guarantees, perceived escrow services, perceived insurance, perceived third
party payment solutions and perceptions of security all contribute to create an institutional context,
which is fundamental to the creation of institution-based trust in an e-commerce environment. In
other words and more specifically, institutional mechanisms positively influence Nigerian online
customers to trust Nigerian e-commerce websites.
17
Whogobuy (Nigerian online market place) which are both online auctioning sites where C2C
commerce is done between customers who might have no previous transaction history.
Monitoring as an institutional mechanism achieves two purposes. The first is the promotion of
responsible behaviour from sellers because the more sellers perceive transactions are being
monitored the less they are likely to behave in ways that would attract sanctions. The second is the
increase of the customers’ trust of the system or the market place because the more the customers
feel the transactions are being monitored the more they would feel assured of the safety of
transacting within that market place. Pavlou (2002) in his study was able to show the positive
influences of perceived monitoring on a sample of eBay customers. We will go a step further by
testing if the positive effects of perceived monitoring holds true for Nigerian web consumers as
well; hence, this becomes our first hypotheses: (H1) Nigerian online customers’ perceptions of the
presence of monitoring positively influence their intention to transact online.
18
approves goods that were purchased from a seller. They further also define the perceived
effectiveness of escrow services as the extent to which customers believe that their transactions are
indeed guaranteed according to their expectations of the escrow service.
Third party payment services like PayPal are companies that ensure the privacy on online customers
by removing the need to provide sensitive customers information like bank or credit card details to
make online transactions. The information is provided only once to PayPal and subsequent online
payments can be made by PayPal on the customer's behalf.
Escrow and third party payment solutions are valid institutional mechanisms because the perception
of their effectiveness can solve many uncertainty issues for customers and encourage them to
engage in online transactions. For instance, customers’ perception of risk in a transaction is likely to
reduce if they feel that their money can always be returned to them upon their not being satisfied
with the goods they have bought from an unknown seller or web vendor or if they feel that their
personal bank details are not exposed to the unknown seller.
Escrow services promote the provision of quality goods by the web vendor or seller. This is because
the better the quality goods the web vendor supplies to customers the less the customers are likely
to reject her/his goods and thereby cancel the transaction which automatically translates to better
business from the web vendor.
Escrow services and third party payment solution increase of the customer’s trust of the system or
the market place because the more the customer perceives that third party payment solutions protect
his/her sensitive data and/or escrow services effectively offer a safety net in the event of their being
unsatisfied with goods or services supplied the more they would feel assured of the safety of
transacting with a web vendor. Hence the third and fourth hypothesis.
(H3) Nigerian online customers’ perceptions of the effectiveness of escrow services positively
influence their intention to transact online.
(H4) Nigerian online customers’ perceptions of the effectiveness of third party payment solutions
positively influence their intention to transact online.
They discovered that visible signs of accreditation like SSL certificates from third parties like
Verisign greatly influenced customers to be more at ease with their privacy concerns and visible
mechanisms of security on the website like a padlock image at the web address bar (encryption) or
an https instead of http on the website URL (encryption) greatly influenced positively customers
decisions to transact on a website on an online market place.
We therefore hypothesize that (H7) Nigerian online customers’ perceptions of presence of website
security measures positively affect their intention to transact on the web vendor website.
(H8) Nigerian online customers’ perceptions of accreditation positively affect their intention to
transact on the web vendor website.
23
20 Sterling Bank Plc www.sterlingbankng.com
21 UBA Plc www.ubagroup.com
22 Union Bank Nigeria Plc www.unionbankng.com
23 Unity Bank Plc
24 WEMA Bank Plc www.wemabank.com
25 Zenith International Bank Plc www.zenithbank.com
Two debit card issuing banks were selected as case studies for this study namely Guarantee Trust
Bank and Equitorial Trust Bank. This is due to the fact that the author was able to get access to the
staff and information with regards to debit card issuance, administration and guarantees. The
information gotten from interviews with the bank staff and visits to the bank websites enabled an in-
depth understanding of the banks' e-business arms, which issue and administer debit cards; they also
deal with complaints and resolve customer issues.
4.2.2 Survey
Surveys have been defined as a methodology designed to collect data from a sample in order to
generalize the results of analysis of the data to a population (Collis & Hussey 2009). They are
traditionally seen as positivistic in nature due to the fact that the results are usually quantitative.
However, surveys can take several forms, for example, online and physical questionnaires,
telephone or face to face interviews and the results can be quantitative or qualitative.
In this study the use of physical questionnaires and face to face interviews were employed.
4.2.2.1 Interviews
Interviews are a methodology of in which information is extracting by means of questions.
According to Collis & Hussey (2009) under an interpretive paradigm interviews are mainly
concerned with exploring data on attitudes, feelings and understandings and will be unstructured,
meanwhile in a positivist study, interviews will be structured and planned in advance with a view to
getting data about a phenomenon from the interviewee. All Interviews can take the form of
telephone, face to face or video conferences between groups or individuals.
Interviews were used on the case study banks because they offer an effective way to get information
on the inner workings of the cases. Consequently, the staff from the e-business departments for both
the banks were chosen to be interviewed because the e-business departments are concerned with the
administration of debit cards, they also handle customer complaints and fix customer issues.
In this study face to face interviews were carried out in the bank premises of the two case study
banks. An e-business department Senior Banking officer was interviewed in each bank and each
interview session lasted approximately an hour. Both interviewees asked their names not to be
mentioned in this study. The interview sessions were semi structured in nature and responses were
taken down with the use of a pen and notepad. At the core of the questions was to find out what
types of guarantees are given to debit card users and if accepted liability in the case of fraud or theft
on the debit card, see appendix 2 for the interview questions.
4.2.2.2 Questionnaires
A questionnaire is a structured set of questions that is asked to a subset of a population in order to
extract data for analysis and generalization about that population.
25
For this study questionnaires were designed to extract information with regards to perceived
Nigerian online institutional safeguards and their effect on Nigerian online user trust of web
vendors.
5.0 Findings
5.1 Findings from questionnaires
A total of 200 questionnaires were distributed at offices all over Lagos, out of which 142 were filled
and returned making the response rate 71%. Professionals were mainly targeted and the
questionnaires were distributed and filled within the space of two weeks.
27
5.2 Gender frequency
As can be seen by the chart below 61% of the questionnaires were filled by men, while women
filled the remaining 39%. This is interesting as it may suggest that there are more males working in
professional roles at offices in Nigeria than females, however this is subject to further research and
verification.
28
50 and above
46 to 50
41 to 45
36 to 40
31 to 35 Frequency
26 to 30
21 to 25
0 to 20
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
Fig 5.0 Percentage of respondents who have made online purchases on Nigerian websites.
29
Other reasons
Frequency of
reason
I don't know how to make payments online
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
As can be seen in figure 7.0 the majority of respondents (46%) that had not purchased goods online
on a Nigerian website before indicated that they had never had the need to, 41% indicated that they
don't trust Nigerian websites enough, while 7% said they do not know how to make purchases
online. A few other reasons such as a general distrust of all websites online and security concerns
were just 6% of the results.
31
Website Transaction monitoring
Website Certificates
Website Reputation
Insurance
Interswitch Protection
Legal Safeguards
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Website Certificates
Website Reputation
Insurance
Interswitch Protection
Legal Safeguards
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
In order to create a clearer picture, each rating was given a weighting. In order, high was weighted
at 3, intermediate at 2, and least at 1; it was then applied to the values that represent the number of
respondents that selected each of the ratings and summed up to give one value for each institutional
32
safeguard. The individual values arrived at for each safeguard is shown in figure 11.0.
Website Certificates
Website Reputation
Insurance
Interswitch Protection
Legal Safeguards
0 20 40 60 80 100 120
33
6.0 Discussion
6.1 Summary of results
As can be seen in Table 2.0 below, based on the results of the survey conducted in this study, all the
hypotheses created in chapter 3 were confirmed within the Nigerian context but to varying degrees.
35
commerce business management, it implies that within the Nigerian context visible signs of a
secure website are sure to make customers more comfortable with transacting with such a website
and in order to encourage online patronage and loyalty from customers efforts should be made to
make websites secure and make such efforts visible and know to the customer.
6.2.6 Perceived effectiveness of third party services like escrow services, third
party payment solutions and insurance
Based on the results of the survey, third party services like escrow services, third party payment
solutions and insurance have very little influence on customers’ perceptions. This could be
attributed to the fact that such services may be little known within the Nigerian context, the
implications of this is that customer need to be sensitized of their existence and functionality.
6.3 Recommendations
The results of this study suggest that Nigerian internet users are influenced to trust web vendors
36
based on their perceptions of protections even if in reality such protection does not exist. This has
strong implications for e-commerce in Nigeria, it means e-commerce web third parties have to work
extra hard to make customers aware of their presence and what how they protect the online
customer, for e-commerce business management it implies that they need to sensitize customers and
make them aware of the measures in place to assure their safety, for the Nigerian Government it
implies a need for laws that are more protective of customers in cyber space and massive
sensitization of these to encourage e-commerce growth.
7.0 Conclusion
This study was able to answer the research questions posited at the first chapter in this study as it
has been able to prove that theories on the role of institution-based trust in initial trust formation
37
between buyers and sellers hold true for Nigeria. The study was also able to identify key
institutional mechanisms that influence customers to transact online with Nigerian web vendors.
It was able to raise some interesting points with regards to how the perceptions of protection are
stronger than the reality of the protection actually offered by institutional mechanism within the
Nigerian context.
The study has made recommendations that are very useful for common web users, e-commerce
management and government agencies.
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Appendix 1
Questionnaire questions
A SURVEY OF NIGERIAN INTERNET USER PERCEPTIONS
This survey takes approximately 3 minutes. It is an integral part of research on e-commerce in Nigeria
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conducted by a Masters Degree student at Newcastle University, UK. The survey is aimed at sampling
Nigerian internet user perceptions with regards to e-commerce in Nigeria. Please endeavour to answer all
questions as truthfully as possible. Thanks for participating.
Have you have ever done business or made any type of payments on a Nigerian website before? If yes
what website(s) did you do this on and how often? Enter data and/or tick frequency as appropriate.
Website/company weekly monthly rarely
www.whogobuy.net
www.buyright.biz
Other:
Other:
If your answer to the first question is no, input or select 1 or more reason that applies to you.
Possible reasons Tick as appropriate
I have never had the need to
I don't know how to make payments online
I don't trust Nigerian websites enough
Other:
Which payment mode(s) below do you normally use for your online transactions on Nigerian websites?
Payment mode Tick as appropriate
Guarantee trust bank debit/credit card
Equitorial trust bank debit/credit card
Other:
Please select and/or input and tick the level of influence of 3 of the factors below that influence you to
trust a Nigerian website enough to do business or make payments on the website
Safeguard High Intermediate Least
Legal safeguards e.g. Nigerian laws protecting you
Protection offered by your debit/credit card issuer (your bank)
Protection offered by Interswitch/Etransact
Insurance
Escrow services on the Nigerian website
Third party Payment services on the Nigerian website
The website's reputation
Presence of website certificate e.g. SSL certificates like Verisign
The website's security features e.g. the website's secure page URLs
staring with HTTPS or a padlock symbol on the address bar.
Transactions on the website are monitored/registered
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Other:
Other:
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Appendix 2
Interview Questions
1. What is you job role?
2. What payment Cards does your company issue
3. who accepts liability in the case of fraud on the card
4. What kind of guarantees do you offer your debit card holders.
5. What kind of security measure are in place to protect the customer
6. What other products do you have in the pipeline with regards to online payment.
7. What are common complains that you get from your debit card users
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