Abstract

The Effects of Initial Trust in On-line Brand Community

Lee Doo Hee, Ph.D.
Professor, Dept. of Business Administration, Korea University

Lee Hyun Joung
Doctoral Student, Dept. of Business Adminisation, Korea Unersity

Park Sang Tae
Doctoral Student, Dept. of Business Adminstration, Korea University

Even though many companies recognize the value of on-line communities and run their own brand communities on their business web-sites, there are only very few studies on what kinds of community they should make and the subject whether the community actually plays a role as the bridge between the company and customers. Therefore, this paper tries to research into the effects of initial trust in the sense that the on-line brand community can be the important means of making trust of enterprise and customers.

The research looked at what are the primary factor that constitute the initial trust of on-line brand community, and what kinds of affects the initial reliance gives to the members of the community. The results of the Inspection are as following:

First, it was proved that preceding variables of the initial trust are divided into perceived reputation, perceived size, perceived quality, perceived risk, and personal disposition to trust. It can be said that the brand community is the worth that is given implicitly and explicitly to those who would like to join it.

Secondly, it was recognized that the initial trust of on-line brand community have the positive affect to intention of joining the community, It is the result that shows it's essential to construct the community which can form the high level of initial trust, for inducement of the affiliation on the brand community. That is, it gives the sense that what kind of value the community should give when the relationship is shaping, to induce the relationship behavior in the management of the brand community.

Key Word : brand community, trust, initial trust, intention of joining the community, personal disposition to trust