Trust and Ecommerce in International Agri-Food Supply Networks

E-commerce offers opportunities for better competition by developing new products and markets, by bringing new actors onto the traditional markets and by developing new types of relationships between the traders. Additionally, using e-commerce, costs can be reduced and the satisfaction of the traders concerning faster delivery can be increased. Nevertheless, electronic transactions are not common in the agri-food sector compared with other businesses.

Every B2B relationship and also e-commerce starts with a first transaction. The initial transaction only takes place when the buyer¿s perceived trustworthiness of the supplier exceeds the buyer¿s perceived risks of the transaction. However, the challenge of the first transaction in e-commerce is how to communicate trust without any previous experience. Trust helps enterprises to trade across border and profit from the online environment, especially in the agri-food sector which deals with complex products due to different uncertainties and risks regarding the food quality and safety.

The main objective of this thesis is to analyse which elements of trust are essential in searching for a new international supplier and how these can be applied to e-commerce. To achieve this objective a stepwise approach has been developed by establishing the following phases: 1) identification of the most relevant trade flows; 2) exploration of trade relationships along the most relevant trade flows; 3) assessment of significance of traditional trust elements; 4) applications of traditional trust elements to e-commerce. The applications are determined by examining selected European (Germany, Austria, Italy, Greece, Spain and Slovenia) and cross-border (USA, Brazil and Turkey) agri-food chains (cereals, meat, fruits and vegetables, and olive oil) to contribute findings of possibly different cultural backgrounds. The identification of the most relevant trade flows (step one) is based on the statistical database and has been used as a basis for future research and to find out where the highest potential for the introduction of e-commerce in the international trade exists. The trade structures differed in the selected countries, and there is a complex picture.