Hsin Hsin Chang, and Su Wen Chen. “The Impact of Online Store Environment Cues on Purchase Intention: Trust and Perceived Risk as a Mediator.” Online Information Review 32.6 (2008): 818–841. emeraldinsight.com (Atypon). Web.
The stated purpose of this paper is to explore whether or not online environment cues like website quality and branding affect consumer purchases on that website. The article also aimed to find the level of relation between perceived risk and consumer trust in an online shopping environment. The study confirmed that website quality and branding do affect customer purchasing decisions but also found that website branding played a larger role in that decision than website quality and insisted that online retailers focus their resources on improving the brand of the website rather than improving the functionality of the website. I chose this article because it exemplifies one of the practical applications of a good understanding of online spaces and how people interact with them. The only possible flaw with this article is that it was published in 2008, which leaves open the possibility that consumer attitudes toward online shopping have changed enough since then so as to invalidate some or all of the findings.