Understanding consumer online shopping behaviour from the perspective of transaction costs

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT 
I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to my supervisors, Dr Fan Liang, Dr 
Rob Hecker and Dr Tommy Wang, for their guidance, encouragement, enthusiasm, 
and support throughout all the stages of completing this dissertation. Their 
encouragement and invaluable wisdom made it for me possible to the zenith of my 
doctoral accomplishment.
I would like to thank the faculty members, colleagues, and friends from the 
Tasmanian School of Business and Economics at UTAS for their help, assistance, and 
support throughout the data collection and the data analysis processes. I extend my 
profound thanks to Dr Debra Grace who generously gave of her time to answer my 
endless questions about complex structural equation modelling techniques. I also want 
to give great thanks to three of my colleagues who helped with translation and back-
translation.
Special thanks go to many Chinese professors who provided significant help for the 
data collection process in China. Especially, I wish to express my sincerest thanks to 
Dr. Hongwei Wang and Dr. Jing Fu who provided full support to the survey carried 
out in China.
Last, but not least, I want to express my love and appreciation to my beloved husband, 
Xuesong Bai and my lovely daughter, Emma. Without their support, encouragement 
and sacrifice, my graduate work and this thesis would not have been possible. Special 
thanks also go to my parents who raised and taught me and always give me 
encouragement. Words cannot describe my immense gratitude for their endless 

---

ix
support, patience and understanding during the pursuit of my educational goals. This 
thesis is especially dedicated to them.

---

x
PEER-REVIEWED PUBLICATIONS OF THE AUTHOR