Journal of Global Information Management, 14(4), 1-30, October-December 2006 1 Copyright © 2006, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited. ABSTRACT Trust and trust beliefs (trustworthiness) are key to e-commerce success but depend, to a large extent, on culture. With e-commerce being an international phenomenon, un- derstanding the cross-cultural aspects of trust creation is therefore arguably required although mostly ignored by current research which deals almost exclusively with the U.S. This exploratory study examines whether definitions of trust beliefs as conceptu- alized and verified in the U.S. apply in Israel which differs markedly in individualism, uncertainty avoidance, and power distance. The data, cross-validating the scale of trust and its antecedents in both cultures, generally support the proposition that trust beliefs apply across cultures, and may be a relatively unvarying aspect of e-commerce. However, as expected, the effects of predictability and familiarity on trust beliefs may differ across national cultures. Implications about the need to include national culture in the research on trust, in general, and in e-commerce in particular, are discussed. Keywords: cross cultural studies; e-commerce; trust INTRODUCTION Despite the differences national culture can cause in e-commerce be- havior (Kacen & Lee, 2002; Lynch & Beck, 2001) and despite e-commerce becoming global, research on trust and trust beliefs in e-commerce has mostly ignored the possible effects of national culture. 1 With few exceptions (e.g., Jarvenpaa & Tractinsky, 1999), trust in e-commerce research has been conducted almost exclusively in the U.S. Yet the U.S is in some regards a unique national culture because of its patently high degree of individualism and relatively low degree of uncertainty On the Need to Include National Culture as a Central Issue in E-Commerce Trust Beliefs David Gefen, Drexel University, USA Tsipi Heart, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel IDEA GROUP PUBLISHING This paper appears in the publication, Journal of Global Information Management, Volume 14, Issue 4 edited by Felix B. Tan © 2006, Idea Group Inc. 701 E. Chocolate Avenue, Suite 200, Hershey PA 17033-1240, USA Tel: 717/533-8845; Fax 717/533-8661; URL-http://www.idea-group.com ITJ3276