Thesis advisor: William F. Stevenson / An important and basic question, highly-relevant to managerial practice, which has been only partially asked and answered in the organizational literature, concerns the development of initial trust among co-workers. In this dissertation, I develop and test the theoretical idea that individual reflection upon affectively-charged work experience will have considerable influence on present attributions of initial trustworthiness to co-workers. The theory is primarily based in the scholarly literature on attribution theory, affective forecasting and trust concepts. Empirical results from testing across three distinct vignette-based scenarios show that the valence of relevant indirect experience is significantly and positively related to the level of initially attributed trustworthiness. Two experiential indicators, relational self-efficacy and organizational identification, are also found to be situationally and positively related to the level of initially attributed trust. The discussion details important implications for scholarship and management practice. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2008. / Submitted to: Boston College. Carroll School of Management. / Discipline: Organization Studies.

Ce travail doctoral vise à étudier le rôle de la confiance initiale dans la phase d'établissement de la relation entre le consommateur et une marque. Pour ce faire, nous avons tout d'abord effectué une étude qualitative exploratoire auprès d'un échantillon de 24 personnes. Dans le cadre de cette étude, nous avons opté pour le cas d'une marque nouvelle pour les interviewés car c'est précisément dans ce cas de figure que la confiance initiale devrait être le plus difficile à établir pour la marque. Les résultats de cette étude exploratoire révèlent l'existence d'une confiance initiale du consommateur envers une nouvelle marque. Celle-ci fait référence à une présomption par le consommateur que la nouvelle marque puisse être fiable et intègre. Elle se forme à partir de quatre types de facteurs : les facteurs liés à la marque, les facteurs liés aux tiers, les facteurs liés au consommateur et le facteur situationnel. Enfin, elle engendre deux conséquences : l'intention d'achat de la nouvelle marque et l'intention de recommander la nouvelle marque à l'entourage. Nous avons ensuite réalisé une enquête en ligne auprès d'un échantillon de 421 femmes afin de vérifier nos hypothèses de recherche. Elle s'est effectuée par le biais d'un questionnaire précédé d'un scénario et portait sur une nouvelle marque de crème anti-rides qui a été conçue pour les besoins de la recherche. Les résultats de cette étude montrent que : (1) la confiance initiale envers une nouvelle marque est un concept unidimensionnel et non bidimensionnel ; (2) certains facteurs influencent positivement la confiance initiale envers une nouvelle marque : la perception positive du bouche à oreille, du point de vente, du pays d'origine et du packaging de cette marque ; (3) d'autres facteurs influencent négativement la confiance initiale envers une nouvelle marque (la perception du prix élevé de cette marque) ou n'ont pas d'influence sur cette dernière (la perception positive de la publicité de cette marque, la propension à faire confiance et l'ouverture d'esprit du consommateur) ; (4) le risque perçu lié à la catégorie de produits a un effet modérateur sur les relations entre la perception positive des signaux émis par les entreprises (le prix, le pays d'origine, le point de vente, le packaging et la publicité) et les tiers (le bouche à oreille) d'une part, et la confiance initiale envers une nouvelle marque d'autre part ; (5) la confiance initiale envers une nouvelle marque est un déterminant de l'intention d'achat et l'intention de recommander cette marque.Mots clés : confiance, confiance initiale, marque. / This doctoral research aims to investigate the role of initial trust in the establishment phase of the relationship between consumer and brand. We first conducted an exploratory qualitative study with a sample of 24 subjects. In this study, we opted for a new brand for the interviewees, since it is precisely in this case that the initial trust should be more difficult to establish for the brand. The results of this exploratory study reveal an initial consumer trust towards a new brand which refers to a presumption by the consumer that the new brand is reliable and honest. It is formed from four types of factors: factors related to the brand, to third parties, to individual consumer and to risk perception. In addition, it generates two outcomes that are intention to buy and intention to recommend the brand. We then conducted an online survey among a sample of 421 women to test our research hypotheses. This is done through a questionnaire preceded by a scenario focused on a new brand of anti-wrinkle cream which is designed for research purposes. The results of this study show that: (1) the initial trust towards a new brand is one-dimensional and not two-dimensional concept; (2) some factors positively influence initial trust towards a new brand: the positive perception of word of mouth, point of sale, country of origin and packaging of this brand; (3) other factors negatively influence the initial trust towards a new brand (the perceived high price of this brand) or have no effect on the latter (positive perception of the brand advertising, the propensity to trust, and openness of the consumer); (4) the perceived risk associated with the product category has a moderating effect on the relationship between positive perception of signals emit by companies (the price, country of origin, point of sale, packaging and advertising) and third (word of mouth) on the one hand, and initial trust towards a new brand on the other hand; (5) the initial trust towards a new brand is a determinant of intention to buy and intention to recommend this brand.Keywords: trust, initial trust, brand

The importance of trust in Electronic Commerce (EC) has been addressed for about two decades and various theories have been applied to investigate the issue. In spite of a consensus among researchers of trust in a website being a risky decision, they have neither applied decision making theories (e.g. two systems of reasoning) in the context nor created a risky situation when examining their hypotheses about trust in EC. Instead, the decision is implicitly assumed to be deliberative although not enough evidences have been collected to support the assumption. An in-lab experiment was conducted to investigate the above shortcomings in the literature. Findings show that unlike the current belief, intuition (and not deliberation), is the dominant decision making process when trusting an unknown website in a risky situation. The level of trust is significantly different when risk is not involved. In addition, one of the well-established constructs, “situational decision making to trust”, was not confirmed by the collected data in the risky situation. The results conflict with EC and trust literature and clarify the crucial role of risk in decision making to trust. Hence, the studies that have measured and validated trust and related constructs without the actual risky situation might need to be reconsidered.

The importance of trust in Electronic Commerce (EC) has been addressed for about two decades and various theories have been applied to investigate the issue. In spite of a consensus among researchers of trust in a website being a risky decision, they have neither applied decision making theories (e.g. two systems of reasoning) in the context nor created a risky situation when examining their hypotheses about trust in EC. Instead, the decision is implicitly assumed to be deliberative although not enough evidences have been collected to support the assumption. An in-lab experiment was conducted to investigate the above shortcomings in the literature. Findings show that unlike the current belief, intuition (and not deliberation), is the dominant decision making process when trusting an unknown website in a risky situation. The level of trust is significantly different when risk is not involved. In addition, one of the well-established constructs, “situational decision making to trust”, was not confirmed by the collected data in the risky situation. The results conflict with EC and trust literature and clarify the crucial role of risk in decision making to trust. Hence, the studies that have measured and validated trust and related constructs without the actual risky situation might need to be reconsidered.

Allt fler företag väljer att vara webbaserade och ägna sig helt till e-handel. Samtidigt fortsätter antalet e-handelsföretag att öka i antal kraftigt. Företagens behov av personlig information och kunddata har även ökat för att förbli konkurrenskraftiga. Vilket skapar ett problem, behovet av denna personliga information hos företagen riskerar att inkräkta på användarens personliga integritet. Tidigare forskning presenterar inte mycket angående värdet av den personliga integriteten och de fördelar ett skyddande av detta genererar.  En empirisk studie bland svenska användare på e-handelssidan tradera där deltagarna delade deras åsikter och värden angående den personliga integriteten och e-handel utfördes och sammanställdes. Den personliga integriteten ses som ett värde för att utreda detta begrepp med en konceptuell utredning, som är en teori inom värdekänslig design. Bidraget till forskningen är ett ramverk för e-handelsföretag som handlar om hur de skall hantera den personliga integriteten. Arbetet har präglats mycket av inläsning som det har getts utrymme för inom rapporten. / More and more companies choose to be online and devote themselves entirely to e-commerce. The number of companies who choose to be online is still continuing to increase rapidly.  The companies needs for personal information and customer data has increased in order to remain competitive. The problem is that the needs for this personal information from the companies are threating to intrude the customers privacy. Previous research is not addressing the value of information privacy and the benefit of privacy protection. I have conducted an empirical survey study among Swedish users on the e-commerce site Tradera where the participants shared their beliefs and values regarding privacy and e-commerce. I choose to see the privacy as a value in order to investigate this concept in a conceptual study, which is a theory in value sensitive design. My contribution to the research will be a framework for e-commerce and how they should manage the concept of privacy in e-commerce.

The rapid growth of the Internet has resulted in the desperate need for alternative ways to keep electronic transactions secure while at the same time allowing entities that do not know each other to interact. This has, in turn, led to a wide area of interest in the issues of trust and trust modeling to be used by machines. A large amount of work has already been undertaken in this area in an attempt to transfer the trust and interaction decision making processes onto the machine. However this work has taken a number of different approaches with little to no correlation between various models and no standard set of criteria was even proposed that can be used to evaluate the value of such models. The proposed research chooses to use a detailed literature survey to investigate the current models in existence. This investigation focuses on identifying criteria that are required by trust models. These criteria are grouped into four categories that represent four important concepts to be implemented in some manner by trust models: trust representation, initial trust, trust update and trust evaluation. The process of identifying these criteria has led to a second problem. The trust evaluation process is a detailed undertaking requiring a high processing overhead. This process can either result in a value that allows an agent to trust another to a certain extent or in a distrust value that results in termination of the interaction. The evaluation process required to obtain the distrust value is just as process intensive as the one resulting in determining a level of trust and the constraints that will be placed on an interaction. This raises the question: How do we simplify the trust evaluation process for agents that have a high probability of resulting in a distrust value? This research solves this problem by adding a fifth category to the criteria already identified; namely: prejudice filters. These filters have been identified by the literature study and are tested by means of a prototype implementation that uses a specific scenario in order to test two simulation case studies. / Dissertation (MSc)--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Computer Science / unrestricted

Lack of trust is argued to be one of the key reasons behind buyers’ reluctance to purchase online. In mobile commerce (m-commerce), gaining initial trust upon the first visit from prospective consumers highly depends on the design of the website. However, the number of qualitative empirical studies investigating what and how website characteristics affect initial trust in an unfamiliar m-commerce website remains limited. The aim of this thesis was thus to gain a deeper understanding of the influence of website characteristics on initial consumer trust in a m-commerce website, to provide insights for designers. An exploratory case study of the mobile version of an e-vendor’s website was conducted and qualitatively examined through Think-Aloud sessions and semi-structured interviews. By thematically analyzing the data, the following website characteristics were identified as influencing initial trust in an unknown m-commerce website: purposeful and clear visual design, internal design consistency, mobile adaptation and reading experience, content quality, similarity and expectations, social proof and external validation. Based on the insights, the study further provides recommendations to practitioners on how to design trustworthy m-commerce websites, both as support in the design pro-cess and for evaluation purposes. / Brist på förtroende anses vara en av de viktigaste orsakerna till att köpare tvekar att handla online. Att få initialt förtroende vid potentiella konsumenters första besök inom mobil handel (m-commerce) beror mycket på webbplatsens design. Antalet kvalitativa empiriska studier som undersöker vad och hur webbplatsens egenskaper påverkar initialt förtroende för en okänd m-handelswebbplats är dock fortfarande begränsat. Syftet med denna avhandling var således att få en djupare förståelse för hur webbplatsens egenskaper påverkar konsumenternas initiala för-troende för en mobil handelswebbplats, för att ge insikter till designers. En undersökande fall-studie av mobilversionen av en e-handlares webbplats genomfördes och undersöktes kvalitativt genom Think-Aloud-sessioner och halvstrukturerade intervjuer. Genom att tematiskt analysera den insamlade datan identifierades följande webbplatsegenskaper att påverka initialt förtroende för en okänd mobil handelswebbplats: målmedveten och tydlig visuell design, internt konsekvent design, mobilanpassning och läsupplevelse, innehållskvalitet, likhet och förväntningar, socialt bevis och extern validering. Baserat på insikterna ger studien rekommendationer till designers om hur man kan utforma pålitliga m-handelswebbplatser, både som stöd i designprocessen och för utvärdering.

協同合作(collaboration)是一個以知識為基礎的互動及建構過程，從1990年中葉起在供應鏈中就被廣泛運用在各項議題中。協同供應鏈成員間的關係主要建立在專案上，彼此間可能沒有合作過的經驗，未來也可能沒有再次合作的機會；事實上，選擇值得信任的合作夥伴是協同供應鏈邁向成功的重要步驟。本研究發展了一個選取信任合作夥伴的模式，在於企業發現新的商業機會時，能選擇一個以往沒有合作經驗但具有高度初始信任(initial trust)的候選人。該模式主要採用聲譽系統(reputation system)和推薦網絡(referral networks)來選取最具有良好聲譽的候選人。我們的模式首先是利用推薦網絡蒐尋到與候選人合作過的第三者來取得候選人的主觀及客觀評選資料，接著利用蒐集到的資料計算出初始信任分數最高的候選人作為協同合作夥伴。在實驗中証實本研究確實可以協助企業選取到具有良好特質的候選人，同時本研究也找出了影響實驗結果的關鍵因素及其值。 / Collaboration is an interactive, constructive and knowledge-based process that has been widely discussed since the mid 1990s. Relationships among participants in the collaborative supply chain are based on projects; with participants have neither histories of interaction, nor any plan for future cooperation. However, selecting a right partner is a critical starting point for successful collaboration in supply chain management. This study develops a Reputation-Based Partner Selection Model (RBPS model) for selecting unknown collaborative partners to explore a new business opportunity, ensure that the partners have high levels of initial trust. The proposed model utilizes the referral networks and reputation system to identify the objective and subjective testimonies of partner candidates from third parties who had previously collaborated with the candidates. These information elements are aggregated into an initial-trust score, and the candidate with the highest score is selected to be a collaborative partner. The experiments were designed to test the model that can help the requestor enterprise to select a partner with the highest initial trust among multiple candidates. The results showed that the candidate, with fine temperament in three trust types (as competence, goodwill and predictability), was selected far more often than other competitors after multiple tests of computer simulations. Additionally, the critical factors and values that most affect the results of RBPS model to select the most reputable candidates were identified.

Creating effective functions in website designs that reduce consumers' anxiety in shopping online is a challenge common to most e-retailers. The present study investigated the roles of online reputation systems and instant chat services in decreasing customer perceived risk and increasing initial trust in unfamiliar e-retailers. Therefore, the reputation system when coupled with live chat service may be an effective external mechanism for providing potential consumers with critical decision making information. The present research focused on examining the respective value of live chat services and reputation systems in reducing potential consumers' perceived risk and simultaneously increasing their initial trust towards an unfamiliar e-retailer. The present research tested an e-retailing trust model based on the consumer decision making process. The model incorporated the following variables: (1) live chat service, and (2) reputation system, and explanatory variables: (1) perceived risk and (2) an initial trust. Customer prediction of purchasing is the response variable. The moderating role of interdependent and independent self-construal on online consumers’ behavior was also examined. Based on the review of literature, the following hypotheses were developed: (H1) Perceived risk associated with an unfamiliar web retailer will vary as a feature of the reputation system feature of a web retailer; where the reputation is positive, perceived risk will decrease. (H2) Perceived risk associated with an unfamiliar web retailer will vary as a feature of the instant chat feature of a web retailer; the mere presence of a live chat feature will decrease perceived risk. (H3) Initial trust associated with an unfamiliar web retailer will vary as a feature of the reputation system feature of a web retailer; where the reputation is viewed as negative, perceived risk will increase. (H4) Initial trust associated with an unfamiliar web retailer will very as a feature of the instant chat feature of a web retailer; the mere absence of a live chat feature will result in an increase in perceived risk. (H5) Purchase Intention will be influenced by the live chat function in the e-retailing website. (H6) Purchase Intention will be influenced by the evaluation system presented in the website. (H7) Purchase Intention will be influenced by the customers' perceived risk. (H8) Purchase intention will be influenced by the customers' initial trust. (H9) There is no interaction effect between the perceived risk and initial trust. (H10) Self-construal will moderate the effects on initial trust and perceived risk. A two by two factorial between-subjects experiment was conducted using a mock retail website design to examine the effect of reputation system and live chat service on customers. The findings demonstrated that the evaluation system significantly influences customers' perceived risk and initial trust, and directly influences customers' purchase intention. Perceived risk and initial trust influence customers' purchase intention independently. For future marketing implications, this research suggests that positive customer reviews, transaction history or other evaluation details in the web presentation is crucial for a starting e-retailer. Although there is no significant direct effect of self-construal on the perceived risk and initial trust, this research demonstrated that female and male have different self-construal and self-construal can be a good mediator to observe its effects on the customers' attitude and behavior. Furthermore, customers' initial trust and perceived risk determine their behavior separately which indicates that customers' initial trust increase doesn’t mean their perceived risk will decrease. / Graduation date: 2012

Submitted by André Luis Milagres Fernandes (andreluis.fernandes@gmail.com) on 2018-07-26T17:21:45Z No. of bitstreams: 2 TESE_FGV_ANDRE FERNANDES_VF.docx: 3451877 bytes, checksum: 5b4fa9b63d61baf05037f3324339f8b0 (MD5) TESE_FGV_ANDRE FERNANDES_VF.docx: 3451877 bytes, checksum: 5b4fa9b63d61baf05037f3324339f8b0 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by ÁUREA CORRÊA DA FONSECA CORRÊA DA FONSECA (aurea.fonseca@fgv.br) on 2018-08-01T14:14:55Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 TESE_FGV_ANDRE FERNANDES_VF.docx: 3451877 bytes, checksum: 5b4fa9b63d61baf05037f3324339f8b0 (MD5) TESE_FGV_ANDRE FERNANDES_VF.docx: 3451877 bytes, checksum: 5b4fa9b63d61baf05037f3324339f8b0 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-06T18:29:30Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 TESE_FGV_ANDRE FERNANDES_VF.docx: 3451877 bytes, checksum: 5b4fa9b63d61baf05037f3324339f8b0 (MD5) TESE_FGV_ANDRE FERNANDES_VF.docx: 3451877 bytes, checksum: 5b4fa9b63d61baf05037f3324339f8b0 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-07-10 / O objetivo desta pesquisa é compreender fatores que influenciam a intenção de uso da moeda social digital, especificamente a influência da Percepção de Confiança Inicial, Percepção de Facilidade de Uso, Percepção de Risco e da Oportunidade de Experimentar o aplicativo da moeda social. O referencial teórico fundamenta-se nas teorias que buscam compreender a intenção de uso dos serviços de pagamentos móveis (M-payment). Os dados foram coletados a partir de um questionário em um levantamento amostral aliado a um experimento de campo aplicado a 256 usuários da moeda social em cédula de três bancos comunitários. A Oportunidade de Experimentar foi uma condição experimental aleatorizada para permitir uma inferência causal mais consistente. Para o teste das hipóteses de pesquisa empregamos o método de PLS-SEM (partial least squares - structural equation modeling). Os resultados indicam que a Oportunidade de Experimentar o aplicativo afeta positivamente a intenção de uso da moeda social digital por meio de seu efeito na percepção de facilidade de uso e percepção de risco sobre o aplicativo. A percepção de confiança também se mostrou como um fator que aumenta a intenção de uso da moeda social digital. / This study aims to understand factors that affect the intention to use a digital social currency, namely the influence of the Initial perception of trust, Perception of ease of use, perception of risk and opportunity to try the app of the digital social currency. The theoretical framework is based on theories that try to explain the intention to use mobile payment services (M-payment). The empirical data was collected by means of a questionnaire in a survey experiment applied to 256 users of the paper social currency of three different community banks. The opportunity to try the app was an experimental condition randomly assigned in order to allow for robust causal inference of its effects. Hypotheses were tested using Partial Least Squares structural equation models (PLS-SEM). Results indicate that the opportunity to try the app positively affects the intent to use the digital social currency by means of its effect on the perception of ease of use and the perception of risk about the app. Trust also showed a positive effect on the intention to use the digital social currency.