Predicting the antecedents of trust in social commerce – A hybrid structural equation modeling with neural network approach

Abstract Trust is an essential concern in s-commerce. Though existing research has studied the association between trust and purchasing intention; the determinants of the formation of trust in s-commerce remain largely unexplored. This study examines the determinants of trust in s-commerce based on social presence and social support. Unlike most business research, we applied a hybrid SEM-ANN approach that can detect non-linear and non-compensatory relationships. Linear and compensatory models assume that a shortfall in one factor may be compensated by other factors. However, consumer decision-making processes are complicated and non-compensatory and linear models tend to oversimplify these processes. Criterion sampling was used to gather 462 datasets of social commerce users using a mall intercept technique. Information support has the strongest effect followed by the social presence of interaction with the sellers, income and social presence of others. The integrated model predicts 76.9% trust in s-commerce. Theoretical and managerial contributions are discussed.