This study proposes and validates a trust measurement model for buyer-seller relationships. Baptized as development-based trust, the model encompasses three dimensions of trust: calculus-based, knowledge-based and identification-based. In addition to recognizing that trust is a multidimensional construct, the model also assumes that trust can evolve to take on a different character depending on the stage of the relationship. In order to test the proposed model and compare it to the characteristic-based trust measurement model, the measure most frequently used in the buyer-seller relationship literature, data were collected from 238 clients of an IT product wholesaler. The results show that the scales are valid and reliable and the proposed development-based trust measurement model is superior to the characteristic-based trust measurement model in terms of its ability to explain certain variables of interest in buyer-seller relationships (long-term relationship orientation, information sharing, behavioral loyalty and future intentions). Implications for practice, limitations and suggestions for future studies are discussed.

Na década de 1990, emergiu uma numerosa literatura abordando os efeitos da confiança interpessoal no crescimento econômico dos países. Teoricamente, a confiança afeta o crescimento econômico por afetar as decisões que envolvem incerteza acerca das ações futuras de outros agentes, como: investimentos, contratações de trabalhadores, inovação, dentre outras. Este trabalho utiliza a metodologia corrente nesta literatura, avaliando o papel da confiança no crescimento econômico em um cross section de países para três períodos, utilizando informações, principalmente, das Penn World Tables, World Values Survey e dados de educação da UNESCO. Aplicando a técnica de least trimmed squares é avaliada a robustez da variável confiança quando se retiram observações aberrantes. Encontra-se que a confiança tem um efeito considerável no crescimento econômico, mesmo quando outliers são removidos. Também são realizados exercícios para a correção de possíveis problemas de endogeneidade da variável de confiança. Além disso, o trabalho analisa os determinantes da confiança individual, utilizando um modelo probit cujas variáveis explicativas são: renda, escolaridade, idade, país, religião, dentre outras. Este exercício também é feito para analisar o caso brasileiro. Encontra-se que a confiança é uma variável que depende mais da sociedade ou do grupo que das características individuais e...

Este trabalho explora o tema confiança nas relações entre líderes e liderados, tendo como base a teoria do flow, de Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, e a trípode do trabalho, de Gillian Stamp (Bioss International). O principal objetivo foi testar a hipótese de que líderes e liderados em condições de flow estão associados a níveis altos de confiança mútua entre líderes e liderados. O método de pesquisa foi um estudo de campo, conduzido em nove empresas, com 643 respondentes a um questionário a respeito de suas percepções sobre o quanto seus trabalhos estão exigindo o melhor de suas capacidades e 1.036 questionários respondidos por líderes e liderados relativos à qualidade da liderança recebida e, em particular, à percepção de confiança do líder para o liderado, nessa relação. Os dados foram tratados nas categorias gerais da população e na categoria particular da relação de pares entre líderes e liderados. Foram conduzidas análises inferenciais com base nos dados coletivos e foram conduzidos testes de hipóteses para as relações específicas de pares de líderes e liderados. Os resultados comparativos demonstram que a hipótese central deste estudo se confirma. Quando líderes e liderados se sentem em condições ótimas de flow a percepção de confiança mútua é alta. O contrário também se confirma...

Trust is a critical challenge that has faced Rwandans for many years due to the ethnic conflict, which disrupted people’ lives starting in 1959s between Hutu and Tutsi. Especially, after the Genocide of 1994, trust among people cannot be taken for granted. However, where trust is occurred, it changes everything; it promotes social order and stability through social exchanges and interactions. Moreover, trust reduces transactions cost and hence, it leads to development through people’s initiatives. Rotating Savings and Credit Associations (Roscs) are mutual aid associations where trust is viewed as a prerequisite for Roscas’ sustainability. Recently, research considers Roscas as a pro poor community development. This paper discusses the relationship between trust and development, and generates knowledge about Roscas, as well as its presence and involvement in the development of Rwanda aftermath of Genocide in 1994. Participation and persistence of Roscas in development, is examined on the basis of the qualitative interviews. In addition, the connection between trust and development is framed according to the social and economic theories. In Roscas, trust is based on individual reputation, past experience (knowledge) and calculus. This research found that Roscas have facilitated in building trust among their members as well as their development

This study proposes and validates a trust measurement model for buyer-seller relationships. Baptized as development-based trust, the model encompasses three dimensions of trust: calculus-based, knowledge-based and identification-based. In addition to recognizing that trust is a multidimensional construct, the model also assumes that trust can evolve to take on a different character depending on the stage of the relationship. In order to test the proposed model and compare it to the characteristic-based trust measurement model, the measure most frequently used in the buyer-seller relationship literature, data were collected from 238 clients of an IT product wholesaler. The results show that the scales are valid and reliable and the proposed development-based trust measurement model is superior to the characteristic-based trust measurement model in terms of its ability to explain certain variables of interest in buyer-seller relationships (long-term relationship orientation, information sharing, behavioral loyalty and future intentions). Implications for practice, limitations and suggestions for future studies are discussed.

The determinants of interfirm trust are examined in 453 supplier automaker relationships in the U.S., Japan, and Korea. The findings indicate high supplier trust emerges when (1) suppliers receive assistance from the automaker, (2) the automaker has a track record of maintaining a continuing (repeated) exchange relationship with the supplier. Although there were some differences across institutional environments, notably higher trust in Japan, the findings are robust across the three institutional environments. Indeed, in a sample of U.S. suppliers that worked with both U.S. and Japanese automakers in the United States, we found that Japanese automakers were more effective than U.S. automakers at building trusting relations with U.S. suppliers. Thus, firm level practices appear to be more important than the institutional environment in the development of interfirm trust. A central issue in the literature on strategic alliances and interfirm cooperation is how firms create trust and control opportunism, particularly when the transactors have made investments in transaction specific assets. Under these conditions, trust has been described as an important antecedent to interorganizational cooperation and economic efficiency (Sako, 1991; Smith...

This research investigates the determinants and role of consumer trust in e-business. It examines consumer perceptions of trust in a Web site and addresses the following key research questions: What factors influence consumer trust in a Web site and what specific Web site trust cues are associated with these factors? How does trust affect consumer behavioral intent on a Web site? To address these questions, we develop a conceptual model that links consumer perceptions of Web site characteristics, consumer characteristics and demographics to perceptions of trust in a Web site, and trust to behavioral intent related to a Web site. We also examine whether trust mediates the relationship between Web site and consumer characteristics and behavioral intent related to the Web site. We test our hypotheses in a large-scale empirical study that estimates this model from 6831 consumers across 25 Web sites and eight industry categories. We validate the model using a holdout sample. The results show that Web site...

OBJECTIVE: To provide baseline findings regarding Australians’ trust in federal, state and local government. METHODS: A computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) survey was administrated during October to December 2009 to a random sample (n = 1109) across Australia (response rate 41.2%). Binary logistic regression analyses were carriedout by means of SPSS. RESULTS: Age, household size, household income, IRSD and ARIA were found to be significant indicators for trust in federal, state and local government. Trust in state government is lower for older respondents and respondents living in inner and outer regional areas. Trust in local council is lower in respondents living in inner regional areas, respondents living in disadvantaged areas, and respondents in the income bracket of $60 001 to $100 000. Trust in federal government is lower for older respondents and respondents living in disadvantaged areas. Of note is diminished trust in government among older, regional and lower income ($30 001–$60 000) respondents. CONCLUSIONS: Trust in all levels of government was found to be the lowest in population groups that are identified by empirical research and media to have the poorest access to government services. As a consequence...

Cloud computing is gaining a considerable momentum as a new computing paradigm for providing flexible and on-demand infrastructures, platforms and software as services. The trust management of services issues attracted many researchers in the past years. However, in cloud computing, with the highly dynamic, distributed and non-transparent nature of cloud services, this research area has gained a considerable significance. Robust trust management approaches will be essential in establishing trust between cloud service consumers and providers and will significantly contribute to the adoption and growth of cloud computing. In this dissertation, we present a novel approach for credibility-based trust management and automatic discovery of cloud services in distributed and highly dynamic environments. We first propose a Zero-Knowledge Credibility Proof Protocol to prove the credibility of consumers’ feedback without breaching consumers’ privacy. We then propose an adaptive and robust Credibility Model for assessing the consumers’ credibility in giving feedback to cloud services. To measure how experienced a consumer would be, we use the concepts of Consumer Capability and Majority Consensus. We further introduce the concepts of Feedback Density and Occasional Feedback Collusion to detect strategic and occasional behaviors of collusion attacks. To detect Sybil attacks...

Authors like Francis Fukuyama or Robert Putnam claim that modern societies suffer from a decline of trust. On the other hand political scientists like Margaret Levi or Susan Stokes and sociologists like Karen Cook contend that as nice as trust might be, we can easily do without it. Especially in political life, distrust, vigilance and scepticism seem to be healthier and more fruitful than trust and modern societies do not depend on trusting relations but on well-functioning institutions. There are social and cultural differences in the amount and quality of trust, as well as historical differences that directly relate to different stages of economic, social and political development. These differences can be connected to other developments such as the growth of government control, the rise of trans-local or even transnational networks of information gathering and monitoring, higher mobility rates and the like. Modern politics rely heavily on institutionalized mechanisms of trust and distrust. At the same time, though, these mechanisms tend to root out the emotional substance of trust. Although many efforts were made during the late 19th and 20th centuries to extend trust to institutions, this somehow failed. People find it hard to trust governments...

With the introduction of web services, users require an automated way of determining their reliability and even their matching to personal and subjective preferences. Therefore, trust modelling of web services, managed in an autonomous way by intelligent agents, is a challenging and relevant issue. Due to the dynamic and distributed nature of web services, recommendations of web services from third parties may also play an important role to build and update automated trust models. In this context, the agent reputation and trust (ART) testbed has been used to compare trust models in three international competitions. The testbed runs locally and defines an ART appraisal domain with a simulation engine, although the trust models may be applied to any kind of automated and remote services, such as web services. Our previous works proposed an already-published trust model called AFRAS that used fuzzy sets to represent reputation of service providers and of recommenders of such services. In this paper we describe the extension required in the trust model to participate in these competitions. The extension consists of a trust strategy that applies the AFRAS trust model to the ART testbed concepts and protocols. An implementation of this extension of AFRAS trust model has participated in the (Spanish and International) 2006 ART competitions. Using this ART platform and some of the agents who participated...

A factor that crucially affects the development of a country is the ability of its judiciary to present itself as a legitimate instance for resolving the disputes that arise in social and economic affairs. One way to approach this topic is to study the reasons that lead citizens to trust or to distrust the judiciary. Thus, this thesis analyzes the determinants of public trust in the judicial system in Brazil; it also attempts to determine the drivers that lead people to trust or to distrust it. Chapter 2 addresses the relationship between trust in the judicial system and economic and demographic variables such as race, income, age, gender, education, previous experience with the judicial system, and knowledge about the legal system. The Brazilian Confidence in Justice Index (BCJI) was built as a trust measure. The BCJI is a measure of perception which reveals the opinion of the population regarding Brazil's judiciary system. The results indicate that race and gender are important predictors, once controlled for other respondent characteristics. Black persons have a slightly lower level of trust in the judiciary than do non-black persons. Women also espress less trust than men. Finally, the results indicate that poorer people also have lower levels of trust in the judicial system. Although there is a substantial literature that relates the determinants of trust in the judicial system and use of the judiciary...

MBA Professional Report; Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited; Trust matters for task performance, particularly when the task involves dealing with potential threat or crisis. When faced with important decisions in such situations, the social connections between managers and front-line employees are critical. Drawing on the concept of trust and organizational design we investigate and provide a comprehensive overview of the effects of trust and mistrust on two different organizational designs. The formation of effective partnerships is influenced greatly by trust. Trust sets the stage for necessary factors for collaboration such as social interaction, communication, negotiation, and cooperation. The organizations are structured as Hierarchies or self-managing teams, also known as Edge organizations. This project analyzes the effects of high and low conditions of trust on two distinct structures of organizations offering insight to appropriate selection of design structures within varying conditions of trust. The analysis also offers a comparison of each group's performance to determine the most effective structures under certain conditions of trust. We find that collaborative, sharing practices (an organic...

In the changing global environment of development cooperation, trust funds have emerged as a significant pillar of the global aid architecture, used to address limitations in bilateral aid and fill perceived gaps in the operations of existing multilateral institutions. They currently account for about 11 percent of official development assistance (ODA), and they finance a substantial part of the World Bank's business. The activities they fund are highly varied, ranging from huge global programs with their own governance structures to conventional development projects, debt and disaster relief operations, and technical assistance. This IEG evaluation, undertaken at the request of World Bank executive directors, assesses the value of the trust fund vehicle as a way of delivering aid and the effectiveness and efficiency of the deployment of trust fund resources. In addition, the evaluation assesses the Bank's management and accountability for the use of trust fund resources and the impact of trust funds on the Bank's development role. The evaluation finds that donors...

Service-based software can be exploited by potentially untrustworthy service requestors while providing services. Given that, it is important to identify, analyze the trust relationships between service providers and requestors, and incorporate them into the service-based software. Treating trust as a nonfunctional requirement (NFR) during software development and monitoring allows clarifying these relationships and measuring the trustworthiness of service requestors. This analysis is facilitated by incorporating trust scenarios and trust models into the software. A trust scenario describes a trust relationship between interested parties based on a specific context. A trust model provides trust equations to measure the trustworthiness of service requestors based on the analysis of service-based interactions. Although much research has been devoted to monitor service quality, to date, no approach has been proposed to develop and automatically monitor service providing software from trust perspectives. In this thesis, we propose a trust-aware service-based software development framework which utilizes our proposed Unified Modeling Language (UML) extension called UMLtrust (UML for trust scenarios)to specify the trust scenarios of a service provider and incorporates our developed trust model called CAT (Context-Aware Trust) into the software to calculate the trustworthiness of service requestors. The trust scenarios are converted to trust rules to monitor service-based interactions. A service requestor is penalized for the violation of a trust rule and rewarded when no rule is violated. The trustworthiness of the requestor is then calculated (using the equations of CAT) based on the current request...

O sistema de saúde pública na República Popular da China tem vindo a ser sujeito a mudanças significativas. Entre elas, a introdução do sector privado é um fator importante para o sucesso e desenvolvimento do sistema. A conjugação das exigências internas com a situação internacional aumenta a atenção sobre as Parcerias Público Privadas (PPP) cujo sucesso e prossecuçãode objetivos depende não somente da complementaridade dos recursos existentes quer no sector público quer no privado, mas também da confiança mútua e do grau dessa confiança, pelo que, nos últimos anos, o estudo da governação das PPPsse tornou num assunto de interesse para a academia e para a prática. Quando se discute a cooperação inter-organizacional, as principais linhas de investigação existentes são a teoria dos custos de transação e o estudo da confiança. A primeira assume que as pessoas tendem a ser oportunistas, o que aumenta os custos de transação. Contudo, através de arranjos na estrutura de governação e de mecanismos contratuais, todos os parceiros podem obter garantias e deste modo reduzir esses custos. Entretanto, os autores que estudam a confiança, acreditam que ela pode eliminar o oportunismo e aumentar a eficiência da cooperação e indicam um conjunto de fatores que conduzem à confiança. Estas linhas de investigação têm porém alguns constrangimentos e...

Trust is essential in building relationships. In mobile commerce, as in electronic commerce, trust is even more valuable given the absence of human contact and direct observation of the service provider. Despite the importance of trust for mobile commerce, there has been little academic effort to study the relationships between mobile devices unique components of interactivity and customer trust, or the relationship between offline, online and mobile trust. This study proposes a trust-mediated model for customer attitude and transaction intentions in mobile commerce contexts that incorporates trust transference and unique factors present in mobile commerce. Data were collected in an online survey and analyzed via structural equations modeling. Results suggest that trust transferred from online contexts and ease of use have significant effects on mobile trust formation, while also indicating that mobile trust influences consumers' attitudes and intentions to purchase using mobile devices.

Trust has played a central role in the design of open distributed systems that span distinct administrative domains. When components of a distributed system can assess the trustworthiness of their peers, they are in a better position to interact with them. There are numerous examples of distributed systems that employ trust inference techniques to regulate the interactions of their components including peer-to-peer file sharing systems, web site and email server reputation services and web search engines.

The recent rise in popularity of Online Social Networking (OSN) services has made an additional dimension of trust readily available to system designers: social trust. By social trust, we refer to the trust information embedded in social links as annotated by users of an OSN. This thesis' overarching contribution is methods for employing social trust embedded in OSNs to solve two distinct and significant problems in distributed information systems.

The first system proposed in this thesis assesses the ability of OSN users to correctly classify online identity assertions. The second system assesses the ability of OSN users to correctly configure devices that classify spamming hosts. In both systems...

Kuhlman, D. Michael; A mediation model is proposed to explain the development of dyadic trust (i.e., trust between two partners) wherein the quality of affective exchange (i.e., exchange fulfilling people's need for interpersonal affection) mediates the contribution of instrumental exchange (i.e., exchange fulfilling people's pragmatic needs). Moreover, some cultural boundary-conditions of this model are hypothesized when comparing Western and Confucian cultures. In one cross-sectional survey (142 American undergraduates, and 126 Chinese undergraduates), daily relationship data supports the mediation model in both cultural groups. However, Chinese trust building is more affectively based compared to American trust building, whereas American trust building is more instrumentally based compared to Chinese trust building. Two experimental studies utilizing a repeated trust game (116 American undergraduates and 123 Chinese undergraduates) further validate a critical, temporal mediation mechanism of the model for trust development, showing that this mechanism works similarly for both cultural groups in the laboratory setting. Lastly, Chinese participants compared to American participants tend to exhibit greater partner trust and lesser inequity aversion towards unbalanced exchange outcomes...

Con la finalidad de comprender mejor el fenómeno de la violación y recuperación de la confianza en el contexto de intercambios entre clientes y empresas, este ensayo teórico tiene el propósito de discutir el impacto del doble desvío en la confianza, la posibilidad de recuperación de la confianza después del doble desvío y tácticas que pueden ser utilizadas para recuperar la confianza después de ocurrir este fenómeno. Para tanto, la diferencia entre la violación de la confianza después de ocurrir la falla en el servicio y aquella ocurrida después de la recuperación mal sucedida de la falla (i.e., doble desvío) es discutida. Se cree que el doble desvío, por incluir una violación severa de la confianza existente, puede aumentar la erosión de la confianza generada después de la falla original del servicio (desvío simple). A seguir, propuestas de investigación incluyendo las promesas de no repetir las fallas y el pedido de disculpas como tácticas para recuperar la confianza del cliente después del doble desvío son presentadas, con base en la lógica de la utilización de pistas y en la teoría de la atribución. Las propuestas de investigación enumeradas en este ensayo son teóricamente significativas y empíricamente comprobables. Como tales...