Potential of the corporate web site to generate trust in environmentally risky firms

Environmental risky firms require technical advances in order to provide sustainable approaches, but also to generate trust in their progress. We use the theory of reasoned action to propose that users of the corporate Web site build trusting beliefs regarding three characteristics of the firm - ability, integrity, and benevolence - which are relevant factors with regard to understanding their intention to trust when dealing with an employment opportunity in the firm. Our experimental results involved 218 master students from a large public university in Europe. Our results show that the level of integrity and benevolence perceived by the users of the corporate Web site will increase their willingness to accept a job in an environmentally risky firm.