Effects of hypertext links on trust transfer

This paper examines how hypertext links between organizations on the World Wide Web influence the transfer of trust from one organization to another. A hypertext link between a trusted organization and an unknown organization has been shown to increase the extent to which consumers perceive that there is a relationship between the two organizations. Perceptions regarding the relationship between organizations have been shown to influence trust in the unknown organization. In the current study, these past findings are replicated and extended by examining effects to both unknown and trusted organizations. Results show that links both received by and sent by an unknown organization have positive effects for that organization and negative effects for the trusted linked organization, though effects are stronger when the link is sent from the trusted to the unknown organization rather than the reverse. The study also provides evidence that links indicating partnerships may have a stronger effect than links indicating advertisements, though subjects had difficulty differentiating the two. Overall, the paper extends the trust transfer model by incorporating outcomes to both linked targets and showing that different kinds of links may have different effects.