Cooperation of Cross-border E-commerce: A reputation and trust perspective

ABSTRACT As a business mode, cross-border e-commerce responds to the trend of globalization. It is an effective means for numerous enterprises to open up new businesses, expand new markets, and overcome trade barriers. More and more enterprises are beginning to explore cross-border e-commerce. Notwithstanding, there is no theoretical guidance for the selection of cross-border e-commerce partners. This leads to the inefficiency of cross-border cooperation. How scientifically and rationally facilitate the inter-firm cooperation is a topic worthy intensive study. Drawing upon cognitive behavior theory, relational governance theory, and transactional cost theory, this paper examines the mechanism of corporate reputation of cross-border e-commerce on inter-firm cooperation under different levels of information sharing. Based on the analysis of the questionnaire data of cross-border e-commerce enterprises, it finds that the corporate reputation of cross-border e-commerce has a significant impact on inter-firm trust and both corporate reputation and inter-firm trust can promote inter-firm cooperation; inter-firm trust partially mediates the relationship between corporate reputation and inter-firm cooperation; with the increase of the levels of information sharing, the positive impact of inter-firm trust on inter-firm cooperation weakens. The conclusions provide theoretical basis for the selection of cross-border e-commerce partners.