A Study of Customers' Trusting Beliefs in Government-to-Customer Online Services

This study examines online transaction web sites of the US government and provides an understanding on the effect of government authority on customers’ perception of trust in G2C online services. Though government web sites are expected to have advantages over private organizations in public reputation and trust, our preliminary study shows that this may not always be true. In this study, government authority as an antecedent of trust and transaction intention is empirically tested, and other factors that might affect the advantage of authority in government sites are explored. We build on previous trust and information assurance research, and present research hypotheses for further development.