Dual effect of perceived risk on cross-national e-commerce

Purpose - This paper aims to provide a model reflecting the mediating role of risk in the transaction as well as the social risk between the channel and repeat purchase intention and also to test the moderating role of the country on that model. Design/methodology/approach - Using a sample of 228 Spanish online buyers and another of 158 Japanese online buyers, a test of mediating effects for the influence of risk on purchase intention and a multigroup analysis for the moderating effect of buyer country are performed. Findings - Online risk has a multidimensional structure: risk in the channel, social risk and risk in the transaction. Risk in the channel has a positive effect on the other two. In Spain the influence of risk on purchase intention is clearly lower than in the case of Japan. Practical implications - Organisations should design different websites to adapt to the values of each target group in each country and to get the maximum benefit from their differences so as to ultimately encourage individuals to repeat purchase. Originality/value It is one of the few studies that analyse the relations between dimensions of online risk and their differential impact on repeat purchase intention. A dual impact of risk is proposed: negative and positive effects of the risk in the channel on repeat purchase intention. Moreover, this is a cross-national study, following the postulates of ELM.