Analyzing the Effect of Trust in Reviews on Trust in a Product and a Company: Using the Trust Transfer Theory

Abstract

The aim of this research is to examine the impact of trust in reviews. Expertise, enjoyment, recency, and usefulness—four aspects of reviews—are designated as independent variables, and trust in reviews has been chosen as the mediating variable. The dependent variables are trust in firms and trust in products. For explaining the flow of trust, this study uses the theory of Trust Transfer. The study"s findings demonstrated that customer trust in a product leads to consumer trust in a company, which is derived from trust in reviews. Reviews were found to be important from a practical standpoint. Furthermore, it was discovered that a product"s category or features would have an impact on how reviews are trusted.