Title: Interpersonal trust and within-nation regional e-commerce adoption

Authors: John T. Gironda; Mark F. Peterson

Addresses: Huizenga School of Business & Entrepreneurship, Nova Southeastern University, 3301 College Avenue, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33314, USA ' Department of Management Programs, Florida Atlantic University, 777 Glades Road, Boca Raton, FL 33431, USA

Abstract: This study extends research on within-nation regional differences as well as the relationship between interpersonal trust and within-nation regional e-commerce by empirically investigating 44 regions of three European Union nations: Italy, Spain and Portugal. Within-nation regional trust data from the World Values Survey is used in conjunction with within-nation regional e-commerce data from the Eurostat Database. Results show that even after controlling for GDP, region size and population density, interpersonal trust is still positively and significantly related to within-nation differences in e-commerce adoption.

Keywords: within-nation variance; e-commerce adoption; World Values Survey; WVS; Eurostat; electronic commerce; interpersonal trust; international management; regional e-commerce; regional differences; Italy; Spain; Portugal; GDP; gross domestic product; region size; population density.

DOI: 10.1504/EJIM.2014.060772

European Journal of International Management, 2014 Vol.8 No.3, pp.241 - 259

Received: 02 Feb 2013
Accepted: 02 Feb 2013
Published online: 14 Oct 2014 *

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