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Understanding the trust building mechanisms in social media: Regulatory effectiveness, trust transfer, and gender difference

Yongqiang Sun (School of Information Management, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China)
Yan Zhang (School of Information Management, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China)
Xiao-Liang Shen (Economics and Management School, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China)
Nan Wang (School of Information Management, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China)
Xi Zhang (College of Management and Economics, Tianjin University, Tianjin, China)
Yanqiu Wu (School of Information Management, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China)

Aslib Journal of Information Management

ISSN: 2050-3806

Article publication date: 14 September 2018

Issue publication date: 11 October 2018

2488

Abstract

Purpose

Although the impacts of trust on information disclosure have been well recognized, the trust building mechanisms in social media are still underexplored. To fill this gap, the purpose of this paper is to explore two trust building mechanisms, namely, institution-based and transference-based trust building and identify how these two mechanisms vary across gender.

Design/methodology/approach

An online survey was conducted to collect data. The partial least squares method was used to examine the relationships among regulatory effectiveness, three trusting perceptions and disclosure intention. A cross-group path coefficient comparison method was used to test gender differences.

Findings

The results suggest that regulatory effectiveness affects competence- and character-based trust and these impacts are stronger for males than for females. Both competence- and character-based trust influence general trust in members while their impacts vary. Competence-based trust is more important for males while character-based trust is more important for females.

Originality/value

This study contributes to social media literature by identifying the two trust building mechanisms with special attention to the role of regulatory effectiveness and trust transfer. Further, this study also sheds light on how these two mechanisms vary across gender.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

The work described in this paper was partially supported by the grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Project Nos 71571133, 71671132, 71828202), the grants from Humanities and Social Sciences Foundation of the Ministry of Education, China (Project Nos 16YJC870011 and 17YJC630157), the Higher Educational Research Project of Hubei Provincial Department of Education (Project No. 2014025), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Project No. 2042018kf0224) and the Research Fund for Academic Team of Young Scholars at Wuhan University (Project No. Whu2016013).

Citation

Sun, Y., Zhang, Y., Shen, X.-L., Wang, N., Zhang, X. and Wu, Y. (2018), "Understanding the trust building mechanisms in social media: Regulatory effectiveness, trust transfer, and gender difference", Aslib Journal of Information Management, Vol. 70 No. 5, pp. 498-517. https://doi.org/10.1108/AJIM-03-2018-0072

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2018, Emerald Publishing Limited

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