Exploring Micro-Entrepreneurs’ Trust on Customers in Social Commerce: Perspective from an Emerging Economy

With the recent surge of entrepreneurs engaging in online businesses using social media, micro-entrepreneurs are confronted with various challenges that impede their entrepreneurial growth. While successful e- commerce transactions require trust from both parties, extant literature have focused on trust from the customer\u27s perspective, neglecting the importance of entrepreneurs’ trust in the success of online transactions. This work investigates how micro-entrepreneurs assess their customers’ trustworthiness, including how they address trust issues arising from social commerce. Following the thematic analysis from the 30 in-depth interviews; the legitimacy of a customer, online community members’ support, social interaction and assurance emerged as prevailing concepts of trust in the conduct of social commerce among Filipino micro-entrepreneurs. This paper also indicated that these dimensions of trust led online entrepreneurs to develop new business practices. We conclude this paper by discussing the implications of our study and the limitations to provide future scholarly directions