Abstract
Building a continuous relationship is regarded as a key success factor in businesses. Many scholars and executives have looked for influencing factors on the development and maintenance of a sound relationship with its customers. In psychology, self-disclosure has been viewed as a major factor in the development, maintenance, and even deterioration of a relationship depending upon the amount of information disclosed. The concept of self-disclosure is defined as the process of revealing personal information to another. This paper attempts to identify these functions of self-disclosure in the business context, particularly in the online shopping environment. Data were gathered from conveniently selected 280 undergraduate business students. Respondents consisted of individuals with at least three or more times of purchasing experiences in the online shopping malls. The Results of empirical analysis revealed that 1) responsiveness and trustworthiness of the online shopping malls positively affects the amount of self-disclosure; 2) effectiveness and social presence of Internet media positively influenced the amount of self-disclosure. However, privacy assurance of the online mall and ease of use of Internet media did not significantly affect the amount of self-disclosure; and 3) self-disclosure positively influenced user satisfaction rating towards the online mall. Practical and theoretical implications of the current study were discussed.