A Decompositional Analysis of IT Certifications in Electronic Markets and their Impact on Customer and Platform Provider Perceptions

在21世纪，在电子市场购物已成为日常生活的重要组成部分。然而，与实体市场相比，客户面临着新的不确定性(即平台安全问题或恶意在线平台提供商)，以及与欺诈(即共享敏感(支付)信息)有关的越来越多的漏洞。这些不确定性和欺诈行为使许多客户不愿或怀疑与在线平台提供商建立交换关系。为了应对这些问题，从业者和学者建议使用和嵌入信息技术证书，从而减少不确定因素，促进稳定的电子市场的发展。然而，关于此类认证的预期效果，学术文献呈现出一种不一致的发现模式。此外，以前的研究主要集中在展示认证是否会影响客户的感知。然而，对哪些认证要素对于认证的有效性至关重要的全面分析一直被忽视。因此，该项目旨在确定和衡量不同的认证配置如何影响客户和平台提供商的认知，从而影响IT认证的S有效性。更进一步，以前的文献只关注客户或平台提供商的角度。因此，作为本研究项目的第二个目标，我们旨在比较和分析客户和提供商的看法，以解决新出现的冲突，从而提高认证的有效性。最后，各种研究表明，客户不熟悉认证，往往对嵌入式保证了解有限，或者完全误解了它们，导致对创新和信息丰富的认证设计的需求。为了解决这一差距，本研究项目分析了如何设计和展示证书以提高其有效性。因此，这项研究项目将导致对认证结构、客户和提供商对认证的看法以及最终认证设计的基本见解。项目成果将为未来的研究提供基本基础，使学者能够广泛和深入地分析电子市场中的IT认证。

Buying in electronic markets has become an important part of everyday life during the twenty-first century. Yet, customers are facing new uncertainties (i.e., platform security issues or malicious online platform providers) and an increasing vulnerability regarding frauds (i.e., sharing sensitive (payment) information) compared to brick-and-mortar markets. These uncertainties and frauds make many customers reluctant or doubtful to engage in exchange relationships with online platform providers. To counteract these issues, practitioners and academics recommend to use and embed IT certifications, thereby reducing uncertainties and fostering the development of stable electronic markets. However, the academic literature presents a pattern of inconsistent findings with regard to intended effects of such certifications. Moreover, previous studies primarily focus on whether or not displaying a certification has an impact on customers´ perception. Yet, a comprehensive analysis on which certification elements are essential for a certification to be effective has been neglected. Therefore, this project aims to identify and measure how different certification configurations influence customers´ and platform providers´ perceptions and thus IT certification´s effectiveness. Further on, previous literature has merely focused either on the customer or the platform provider perspective. Hence, as a second objective of this research project, we aim to compare and analyze perceptions of customers and providers to resolve emerging conflicts, and thereby increase certification effectiveness. Finally, various research has argued and shown that customers are not familiar with certifications, tend to have a limited understanding of embedded assurances or misunderstand them altogether, resulting in calls for innovative and informative certification designs. To address this gap, this research project analyzes how to design and display certifications to foster their effectiveness. Hence, this research project will result in essential insights about certification structuring, customers´ and providers´ perceptions about certifications, and finally certification design. Project findings will provide a fundamental basis for future research, enabling scholars to extensively and profoundly analyze IT certifications in electronic markets.