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This study examines persons' trust in the federal government using data from the National Election Study for the presidential election years 1980 through 2000. I hypothesize that person's perceptions of the national economy's health and their affect toward the incumbent president are both positively correlated with their trust in the federal government. I also hypothesize that a person's level of affect toward the president is a stronger predictor of their trust in the federal government than persons' perceptions of the national economy's health. All of these hypotheses are supported in my findings. I also present a serendipitous finding that relates to political party culture. This study finds significant differences between Democrats and Republicans in the trust they afford the government via affect toward the president, suggesting a difference in how self-identified Democrats and Republicans view the president's role in government. / Master of Science

Thesis advisor: Richard Atkins / Thesis advisor: Daniel McKaughan / Trust is vital for much of what we know and do. Yet, standard accounts of trust face a problem. Either they analyze trust in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions such that they face counterexamples, or they fail to explain trust’s role in social practices. To address this problem, I develop and defend a view that I call pragmatic pluralism. Pluralism is the view that trust comes in many forms. I show how pluralism can address counterexamples and preserve the insights of standard theories of trust. However, pluralism neglects to explain how the diverse interests of different parties coalesce in cooperative social practices. In turn, pragmatism provides an explanatory strategy for uniting various forms of trust according to their function. Specifically, I examine trust’s role in disposing parties to rely on each other to achieve their goals. This shared, dispositional function explains how various forms of trust can facilitate cooperative social practices. I argue that pragmatic pluralism is plausible given developments in empirical trust research. I then apply insights from pragmatic pluralism to disputes about values in science and trust in artificial intelligence. I contend that well-placed trust in each case requires a normative view about the appropriate conditions of trust. While pragmatic pluralism is a descriptive account of trust, I conclude that it provides resources for inquiring about the normatively appropriate conditions of trust—those conditions according to which a trustee is worthy of trust. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2024. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Philosophy.

Aim: To understand the influence of guanxi and trust on business to business relationships in the Chinese market. Method: This study was conducted based on an inductive qualitative research method with the use of primary and secondary data. A case study, with semi-structured interview questions and open-end questionnaire, were used for the collection of primary data. In total 27employees were interviewed, 13 through an online application and 14 through an online survey. Result & Conclusions: Guanxi and trust are inseparable and complement each other when building B2B relationships. Renqing and ganqing are part of guanxi which can influence guanxi directly. Trust can be divided into interpersonal and organizational trust and both can build B2B relationships. For the creation of a long-term relationship between business partners, both guanxi and trust are essential to maintain and strengthen the relationship. Suggestion for future research: Because of the limited number of interviews and circumstances, the results of this research are based in one company and three of its business partners. All the interviewed employees work in China and are specialized in the pharmaceutical industry. Therefore, the results are difficult to be generalized, but further studies can be conducted in different fields and industries, such as government-owned companies and various business scopes to investigate if the different levels of guanxi and trust influence business relationships or performance. Contribution of the study: This study contributes to the understanding of how guanxi and trust influence relationships between business partners in China. No matter which starts the initial B2B relationship, both trust and guanxi are essential in building, maintain and strengthening B2B relationships.

The theme of this study is the impact of leadership trust on an agricultural business, with a primarily goal to establish the relationship between the perceptions on leadership and trust of top and middle level management. Furthermore, this study emphasises the importance of the level of the agricultural businesses leadership and trust profile and the important role that it plays in the business. Quantitative research techniques were used to collect the data and after statistical formulation it was found that the leaders’ perceptions based on leadership based on outcomes were high, although the level of trust was low. The implication of this for management is that they must be aware of the perceptions of their leaders regarding leadership and trust. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2012.

The theme of this study is the impact of leadership trust on an agricultural business, with a primarily goal to establish the relationship between the perceptions on leadership and trust of top and middle level management. Furthermore, this study emphasises the importance of the level of the agricultural businesses leadership and trust profile and the important role that it plays in the business. Quantitative research techniques were used to collect the data and after statistical formulation it was found that the leaders’ perceptions based on leadership based on outcomes were high, although the level of trust was low. The implication of this for management is that they must be aware of the perceptions of their leaders regarding leadership and trust. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2012.

Thesis (Ph.D.) - Carleton University, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 134-151). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

When it comes to how the team members build trust three themes were found; knowledge sharing, expectations and shared values and relationship building. Further on when it comes to the challenges five bigger themes were found which are; distance, culture decisions from above, knowledge and other challenges. Furthermore, the study also explored how difficult it is to build trust due to its complexity as several challenges were identified. Some suggestions have been made on how to face these challenges and it has been concluded that you need to take into account many different aspects when it comes to building trust in agile teams.

Previous studies have revealed that the creation of synergy among retailers’ channels can enhance customers’ satisfaction and loyalty. Nevertheless, little is known about utilising such synergy in inducing customers’ purchasing behaviour in electronic commerce. In an attempt to address this issue, few empirical studies have been conducted into the role of trust transference from brick to click channels in order to understand customers’ purchasing intentions. These empirical studies have mainly focused on interpersonal trust as a proxy of the transference process. Therefore, the present study seeks to articulate the importance of impersonal trust, and shed light on its expected role in the transference process during the introductory stage of customers’ interaction. Impersonal trust, or perceived structural assurance as labelled in this study, refers to customers’ beliefs in the legal and technological structures of retailers’ websites. However, the introductory stage describes the state of customers when they have not yet been exposed to a retailer’s website. These notions are thoroughly reviewed and synthesised to achieve a proper conceptualisation and operationalisation for the perceived structural assurance. Then, on the basis of previous theories and studies, a conceptual model is constructed to determine several drivers of the perceived structural assurance, as well as its consequences. With regard to the research methodology, a quantitative triangulation choice is adopted in the present study. This choice involves the design of a survey questionnaire, which is employed after relying on several explorative instruments. However, upon the insights of a pilot study, a total of 304 responses are used to analyse the overall research data. Then, the results are generated through an advanced stage of statistical analysis which is performed by Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). The results indicate that the validated model is robust and can be used in generalising the findings of the current research. The novelty of this study involves several contributions to the body of knowledge and practice. This study develops a model that theoretically extends the existing knowledge on the trust transference phenomenon and posits an effective approach of triangulating methods in quantitative research. Lastly, this study contributes to the practice by presenting evidence to support the synergy among retailers’ brick and click channels.

Globalization trends have affected many software organizations in the past years. They are turning towards global software development (GSD) market in search for quality with a lower price and shorter development times. It turns out that certain management methods used for in-house development are not applicable in GSD, often resulting in a failed project. It is believed that trust is one of the key factors for success or failure of such projects. In the first part, this thesis studies the causes of lacking or losing trust in globally distributed teams though a literature review and systematic review of current research. The second part of this thesis studies the practices which have been applied in industry to prevent or minimize the impact of trust related issues. Finally these practices are mapped to the identified issues, resulting in a set of recommendations for managers involved in GSD.