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<p>En virtuell organisation (VO) är resultatet av den snabba och målmedvetna utvecklingen, där exempelvis två företag kan agera som separata enheter, men arbeta tillsammans som ett företag och på så sätt blir ett virtuellt lag. Lagsamarbetet består av en grupp människor med spetskompetens. Detta arbetssätt har lett till att flera företag inom en VO kan ha tillgång till samma information, oavsett var arbetsplatsen är geografiskt lokaliserad.</p><p>Undersökningen i rapporten genomfördes i intervjuform. Sex företag medverkade. Arbetet syftade till att klargöra vilka faktorer som företagen ansåg vara viktiga, då virtuella lag skapas inom en VO. Ett annat syfte var att klargöra betydelsen av förtroende (trust) under ett samarbete och vilka för och nackdelar företagen ansåg sig uppleva med en VO.</p><p>Resultatet av undersökningen har visat att flera faktorer måste beaktas, då ett virtuellt lag ska skapas inom en VO. Utan riktlinjer kan inte ett virtuellt lag skapas. Företagen anser att en lagledare behövs för att sammanlänka de riktlinjer som finns, för rekrytering av spetskompetens och nödvändig teknologi.</p>

<p>The use of mobile ad-hoc networks (MANETs) is growing. The issue of security in MANETs is not trivial, since such networks have no fixed infrastructure and therefor centralised security is not applicable. MANETs are also more sensitive to attacks due to their wireless communication channels and their spontaneous nature.</p><p>All kind of cooperation requires a sense of trust. The opinion about trust in other entities can be used as a mean to dynamically allow for secure cooperation in MANETs, as soft security. And also to counter some of the inherited security problems of MANETs.</p><p>To use opinions as a security paradigm in MANETs the opinions about other nodes has to be spread as reputation about a node. This reputation spreading can be done through spreading of opinions or the spreading of evidences about a nodes behaviour.</p><p>In this work evidence and reputation spreading are compared to each other. This comparison shows that they are quite similar from a security point of view but that they differ in scalability.</p>

<p>Trust is a major challenge to the consumer acceptance of e-commerce: the lack of trust is an important reason for the hesitant growth in e-commerce and for the reluctance of consumers to engage in online buying transaction. Communicating trustworthiness is therefore a major challenge companies encounter. This study concentrates on the various means communicating trustworthiness proposed by researchers. An overview of means is presented according to a buying transaction process life cycle spanning the four phases information, agreement, handling, and postpurchase. Besides enabling the categorization of the various means to develop consumer trust, the four phases in addition illuminate the dynamic aspect of trust development and allow the introduction of a simple measure to determine success in the domain of e-commerce by evaluating the repetitiveness of consumer transacting with the e-vendor. A web site analysis was conducted to evaluate the trust means usage in practice. The findings of the web site analysis indicate three general trends. First, the analyzed web sites hint at an absent exploitation of second and third degree information. Second, the results of the study obtained from the indicators regarding the later phases portray a lack of means usage during the handling and postpurchase phase. Third, the web site analysis points out multiple possibilities for e-vendors to adjust, improve, and implement additional trust means. In general, the discovered trends are an indication for e-vendors to adopt their strategies to employ trust means towards the relevant consumer perspective of the company.</p>

<p>Information fusion is to combine information from a variety of sources, or sensors. When the sources are uncertain or contradicting conflict can arise. To deal with such uncertainty and conflict a trust model can be used. The most common ones in information fusion currently is bayesian theory and Dempster-Shafer theory. Bayesian theory does not explicitly handle ignorance, and thus predetermined values has to be hard coded into the system. This is solved in Dempster-Shafer theory by the introduction of ignorance. Even though Dempster-Shafer theory is widely used in information fusion when there is a need for ignorance to be modelled, there has been serious critique presented towards the theory. Thus this work aims at examining another trust models utility in information fusion namely subjective logic. The examination is executed by studying subjective logic using two scenarios from the literature. The results from the scenarios points to subjective logic being a reasonable approach for modelling trust in information fusion.</p>

<p>It is increasingly common that Swedish companies get acquired by foreign firms. An acquisition will have more evident changes in the acquired firm. The organisational structure will be affected which implies that people in different levels of the organisation experience the changes differently. Middle managers are believed to have an exposed role in organisational changes as they are in between top management and employees. In order to reach a successful integration in the postacquisition process employee trust in management is seen as a vital part. The area of middle managers in acquisitions and how individuals experience the post-acquisition process are subjects where more research is needed.</p><p>The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the post-acquisition process in the acquired firm, focusing on how the acquisition has been experienced among middle managers and their employees.</p><p>The method chosen for thesis is qualitative and the information has been collected by using semi-standardised interviews as well as questionnaires. The study was limited to one company where seven middle managers and the human resource manager were interviewed. Also 32 employees participated in the study by answering the questionnaires.</p><p>We can conclude that the middle managers did not show resistance to changes unless it would be unfavourable for the company. We could also see indications that internally advanced middle managers can be related to an advantageous atmosphere of communicating trust. It was also concluded that middle managers are a vital link in terms of conveying information throughout the post-acquisition process.</p>

<p>Globalization has lead to evolvement of teamwork between companies and their customers. One reason for this change is the growth of the IT community and the propagation of the Internet. This in turn has lead to faster communication within business networks and also a higher degree of integration between companies.</p><p>The purpose of this thesis is to describe IT can be used to develop and support networks formed around IT corporations. IT also aim at describing what impact usage of IT within personal networks has on usage of IT within business networks. The thesis is limited to IT-companies using IT artifacts, not only for communication within its organization, but also communicating with its customers and other IT-companies. The companies in this thesis are geographically situated in the same county.</p><p>A qualitative approach has been used based on our purpose to describe what is behind the choice to use IT artifacts in business networks. In the frame of reference we discuss subject such as the concept of network, hierarchies and companies boundaries, relations, communication and trust and security issues using IT. The empirical part consists of interviews with six respondents from six different IT companies. The companies represent a selection with both flat and hierarchic organizations. They operate on different markets and have different customers. Furthermore, they differ in boundaries, hierarchy and grade of integration with customers and suppliers.</p><p>The analysis show that all companies participate in one or more business networks. All but one respondent participate in one or more personal networks. All respondents stress the fact that the face-to-face meeting is till important and it can not be fully replaced by IT. IT is used as a complement in the business networks to easily stay in contact with other participants. However, all respondents are of the opinion that networks only based on IT is not possible based on the fact that deeper trust can not evolve without face-to-face meetings.</p><p>We conclude that IT is an effective tool complementing personal relations through the possibilities of information sharing without having to meet face-to-face. Nevertheless, the face-to-face meeting is yet important.</p> / <p>Globaliseringen har gjort att samspelet mellan företag och dess kunder blivit allt snabbare och tätare. En av anledningarna till denna förändring är det snabbväxande IT-samhället och Internets utbredning. IT och Internet har även ändrat villkoren för dagens nätverksskapande genom att företag snabbare kan kommunicera med kunder och leverantörer samt även öka integrationen.</p><p>Syftet med uppsatsen är att beskriva hur IT kan användas för att skapa och underhålla nätverk där IT-företag ingår och att beskriva vilket inflytande användningen av IT personliga nätverk har på användningen av IT företagsnätverk. Vi har avgränsat oss till företag som i sin verksamhet aktivt använder IT som kommunikationskanal både inom organisationen, utåt mot sina kunder och andra företag verksamma inom IT-området, och som geografiskt hör till samma län.</p><p>Vi har valt en kvalitativ ansats eftersom vi vill beskriva vad som påverkar valet av IT som ett nätverksverktyg och hur olika företag och individer uppfattar betydelsen av IT som grund för deras nätverksbygge. I referensramen berör vi områden som har att göra med nätverk som begrepp, företags gränser och hierarkier, relationer, kommunikation och förtroende samt säkerhet vid användning av IT. Empirin består av intervjuer med sex respondenter från sex olika företag. Dessa företag representerar ett urval med både platt och hierarkisk organisation. Vidare arbetar de på olika marknader och mot olika kunder. Samt skiljer sig åt vad avser gränser, hierarki och integration med kunder och leverantörer.</p><p>Vid analysen framkommer att samtliga företag ingår i ett eller flera nätverk. Alla utom en respondent ingår i ett eller flera nätverk privat. Samtliga respondenter framhåller att det personliga mötet fortfarande är viktigt och att det inte kan ersättas av IT. IT används idag som ett komplement i företagens nätverk för att på ett enkelt sätt hålla kontakten med varandra. Däremot anser respondenterna att helt gå över till virtuella, IT-baserade, nätverk inte är möjligt eftersom de upplever det som svårt att bygga upp ett djupare förtroende utan personliga möten.</p><p>Vår slutsats är att IT på ett effektivt sätt kan komplettera personliga relationer genom att information kan delas med andra deltagare utan att någon direktkontakt krävs. Dock är det personliga mötet fortfarande viktigt.</p>

Thesis (M.A.)--Denver Seminary, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 62-68).

Thesis (Revise). / Includes bibliographical references (p. 383-424), bibliographical references and indexes (p. 425-441).

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Notre Dame, 2009. / Thesis directed by Donald B. Pope-Davis for the Department of Psychology. "December 2009." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 70-77).