| Abstract [eng] |
This paper consists of 105 pages (including appendices), 43 tables, 1 figure, and 108 references. The main purpose of this master's thesis is to study the impact of trust and distrust factors on willingness of online shopping and social networking users in two countries, China and Lithuania, to disclose personal information. This work consists of three main parts: literature analysis, research methods, and analysis of empirical research results. The essence of the paper is presented in the introduction; the paper ends with recommendations and conclusions, references, and appendices. The literature analysis introduces the main theories of trust and distrust, the factors of trust and distrust, the analysis of China and Lithuania cultural differences, and the analysis of the influence on the willingness to disclose personal information. The last part of the literature analysis reviews the differences in the cultures of the two countries, including the influence of uncertainty avoidance, power distance, collectivism, and individualism on trust and distrust, as well as the positive and negative influence on the willingness to disclose personal information. The research method is based on a model in which the factors of trust and distrust affect the willingness to disclose personal information and the two different countries are moderating variables, including paranoia and conspiracy beliefs as distrust factors, trust in people, and trust in organization as trust factors. The hypotheses include testing the impact of trust and distrust factors on the disclosure of personal information in online shopping and social networking , the impact of different countries on trust and distrust factors, and the impact of trust and distrust factors on the disclosure of personal information in online shopping and social networking with country as a moderating variable. Data were collected through an online survey. The research instrument (questionnaire) was developed using the questionnaire of researchers in earlier studies. |
