Intermediating Effect of Knowledge Sharing between Virtual Community System Design and E-commerce Trust: An Empirical Study from China

Computer technology has long been considered an important factor influencing attitude and action of human being. And system design of enterprise's virtual community is also an important factor influencing consumer's trust in e-vendors. How system design affect consumer's attitude is a multi-disciplinary research topic. Some researchers have separately studied the effect of knowledge sharing behavior and social aspect of system design on e-commerce trust. But researchers seldom further investigate the intermediating role of knowledge sharing between system design and e-commerce trust. From a knowledge sharing perspective, a theoretical model for relationship between system design, knowledge sharing and e-commerce trust is proposed. This model is examined through an empirical study involving 203 subjects using structural equation modeling techniques. Research limitations and future directions are discussed based on model fit and hypotheses test.