Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/230637 
Year of Publication: 
2021
Citation: 
[Journal:] Sustainability [ISSN:] 2071-1050 [Volume:] 13 [Issue:] 4 [Article No.:] 1884 [Publisher:] MDPI [Place:] Basel [Year:] 2021
Publisher: 
MDPI, Basel
Abstract: 
Trust in information originating from a company is becoming essential, as consumer preferences are increasingly versatile and oriented towards credence attributes. Social media, which emerged as a dominant means of online communication, might help increase consumers’ trust in companies. The paper empirically investigates a conceptual trust-building mechanism that could occur on companies’ social media pages. A survey was conducted among social media users in Belgrade (Serbia). The collected data were analyzed using covariance-based structural equation modeling. It confirmed that in an interactive environment of companies’ social media pages, trust can be built towards two objects. The first one is trust among consumers, and the second one is trust towards a company. The results also confirm a connection between trust and an intention to purchase, both being also related to a consumer’s willingness to obtain information. Therefore, the result can serve as a basis for creating more effective marketing campaigns where a company is the source of information regarding credence (added-value) attributes of its products.
Subjects: 
consumer behavior
purchase intention
trust
social media
small and medium enterprises
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by Logo
Document Type: 
Article
Document Version: 
Published Version

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