Sha earns research award for e-commerce paper

  Wednesday, September 10, 2014 2:00 AM
  News

Pittsburg, KS

Every day, billions of dollars are spent in stores with no operating hours, no long checkout lines and a seemingly endless supply. And it’s all done with just a credit card number and a few keyboard clicks.

Online shopping has become a way of life all around the world, but how do shoppers know which websites they can trust?

“When you go online to buy something, even if you don’t realize it, you’re examining the website to see if you can trust it,” said Wei Sha, associate professor in the Pitt State Department of Accounting and Computer Information Systems. “That’s especially true if it’s a website with which you’re not familiar.”

Fairness and trustworthiness in the e-commerce industry is the subject of a research paper written by Sha that recently received a prestigious honor from the International Association for Computer Information Systems (IACIS).

Sha’s paper, titled “The Nomological Network Validity of Perceived Fairness in Business-to-Consumer E-Commerce,” earned the Best Paper Award for the Research Division at the upcoming IACIS Conference in Las Vegas.

“It’s an incredible honor for me and my family,” Sha said. “I’m very excited and proud to receive the award.”

Sha said his paper focuses on the how online stores, through their websites, create “psychological contracts” with shoppers to earn and maintain trust. Once the store creates a level of trust with online buyers, Sha said, profitability increases.

“As shoppers, we want to know that when we give our credit card number to a particular website, we’re going to get the product we ordered and that our private information will remain private,” Sha said. “Until people feel that they trust your website, few are going to shop there. The paper examines how businesses can create that trust.”

Sha will receive the award at the IACIS Conference, which takes place Oct. 1-4.