Background: Changing interests and expectations of societies have resulted in the development of new communication and business channels. The boom of social media, allowed for a rapid exchange of beliefs, opinions and ideas. The ways of advertising products have also been changed. Once beloved, both by companies and customers, celebrity endorsement is becoming less and less popular in favor of, commonly now used, peer-created reviews. Modern enterprises increasingly use an image of an ‘ordinary’ person in their marketing strategies and the internet has seen a flourishing trend of peercreated posts and reviews. The concept of trust has been known in the literature for ages, however with new times, new angles of perception of this phenomenon appear. There is still little to none research done in the area of trustworthiness towards peer-created content, and exploring this phenomenon is the purpose of this work. Purpose: The purpose of our work is in a way twofold. First, we aim to obtain more insights on how sponsored and non-sponsored peer-created content posted on Instagram can influence consumer’s knowledge of persuasion in advertising. Second, we examine if and how the source credibility and the trustworthiness of shared content can be affected by customers awareness of the persuasion intent of sponsored texts. Method: Web-based, self-completion surveys were disseminated amongst our friends and family in order to collect the data. The analysis was done through SPSS, using the correlation and multiple regression analysis calculations. Furthermore, to deeper understand the relationships between the variables and to find possible interaction effects between them, the moderator analysis was conducted. Conclusion: The sponsored peer-created content of the post is widely recognized as a deliberate marketing activity of a company. What is more, the non-sponsored content is also being perceived as a product advertisement, however, with less conviction that in the case of the sponsored posts. A positive relationship between lack of recognition of non-sponsored posts as the product advertisements and the trustworthiness towards the content has been found, meaning that the less the content of the post is perceived as a deliberate marketing activity of a company, the more trustworthy it is to the respondent. Consequently, the more people perceive a specific post as an advertisement commissioned by the company, the less trustworthy they feel towards its content.

Purpose - The purpose of this study was to explore how companies that sell household services work with trust-enhancing measures. We reviewed the industry segment of meal kit companies and aimed to generate findings representative for this industry. Methodology - The study applied a qualitative research methodology where seven semi-structured interviews with company representatives were held. Findings - Trust-enhancing measures were performed when the companies emphasised competence through their communication of company values, values connected to high grocery quality, the work behind recipe creation and lastly by providing educational content which portrayed them as the experts. Another trust-enhancing measure was the use of consumer reviews. Implications - For household service companies to enter the consumer’s personal sphere, enhancing trust is key. This can be done through conveying that the companies have the expertise needed to fulfil their promise - this to assure the consumer that he or she does not need to worry. Contribution - To the best of our knowledge, few studies have considered company trust- enhancing measures within the context of outsourcing household services. Consequently, we hoped to contribute to literature and shed light on this phenomenon.

O Código Civil, tal como disciplinado atualmente, confere os dispositivos necessários à proteção da confiança, à proibição do comportamento contraditório e demais institutos relacionados à confiança. Para tanto, o direito brasileiro adotou a técnica legislativa da cláusula geral para introduzir em sua normatividade a ética como regra de conduta exigida das partes, cabendo ao Juiz a função integrativa para determinar qual é a conduta adequada em cada caso concreto. Os deveres anexos ou laterais, consagrados pela função criadora de deveres jurídicos da boa-fé objetiva, impõem aos contratantes o cumprimento de obrigações acessórias para que a obrigação principal seja adimplida. A vedação do comportamento contraditório, seu conteúdo, forma de caracterização e aplicação consiste na proteção à confiança e os princípios da dignidade da pessoa humana, da solidariedade e boa-fé objetiva, que norteiam o ordenamento jurídico pátrio. Ao negociar, sabedora das limitações de informações das partes contratos incompletos uma empresa certamente colocará na formação de preços uma parcela que corresponda aos custos da incerteza (riscos) gerados durante as negociações. Ao repensar a situação, e percebendo a oportunidade de eventualmente encontrar o equilíbrio no futuro, poderá a empresa optar por reduzir a parcela de preço decorrente do risco inerente à assimetria de informações, sendo, portanto, mais competitiva ao identificar que eventuais falhas, ainda que inconscientes, podem vir a ser sanadas por meio do provimento judicial. A lealdade que deve presidir as relações entre as partes faz com que os contratos empresariais, dentre outros, residam em ambiente probo, permitindo, assim, o equilíbrio da relação por ocasião das negociações preliminares (culpa in contrahendo), durante a execução do contrato (teoria dos atos próprios - venire contra factum proprium e tu quoque), e após a execução contratual, como ocorre na hipótese da responsabilidade post pactum finitum. / The Civil Code, as enacted, provides the necessary tools to protect the trustworthiness, the prohibition of contradictory behavior and other institutes related. Therefore, Brazilian law adopted a legislative technique which introduces the general clause as a normative rule of conduct required from the parties, providing the Judge with an integrative function aiming at determining which rule would fit each case. The lateral duties, considered legal duties by the good faith, require contractors to meet certain accessory obligations. Forbidding the contradictory behavior, its content and characterization consists in a protection of the trust and the principles of human dignity, solidarity and good faith. During any negotiation, being aware of the limitations of information - incomplete contracts - a company certainly increases the price to cover the costs of uncertainty (risk) generated during the negotiations. By finding the opportunity to reach the balance the risk, the company may reduce the share price due to the risk inherent in asymmetric information, and therefore become more competitive by identifying any faults that, although unconscious, could be remedied through judicial appointment. The loyalty that should govern relations between the parties put business contracts, among others, in a honest environment, thus allowing the balance of the relationship during the preliminary negotiations (culpa in contrahendo) during performance of the contract (through the theory of the acts, venire factum proprium and tu quoque), and after contract execution, through the theory of post pactum finitum liability.

Abstract   Date: May 29th 2017   Level: Master thesis in Business Administration, 15 ECTS Institution: School of Business, Society and Engineering, Mälardalen University                       Authors: Manuel Yakob & Siham Belawni  Title: Fund analyst’s trustworthiness view and usage of sustainability reports Tutor: Stefan Schiller Keywords: Sustainability report, sustainability accounting, fund analyst’s, fund manager, trustworthiness Research questions: - What do fund analyst’s consider characterize trustworthiness in enterprises voluntary sustainability reports? - To what extent do fund analyst’s use sustainability reports in their business analysis? Purpose: The purpose of this report is to contribute knowledge of aspects that characterize trustworthiness in enterprises sustainability reports and study the sustainability reports meaning and usage for fund analyst’s. Method: The report has a qualitative study to solve our research questions and a set of semi structured telephone interviews were used for our collection of data. Conclusion: The report demonstrates that several elements have an influence on the trustworthiness of enterprises sustainability reports. Presentation of enterprises business goals and sustainability risks and challenges are seen as elements that raise the trustworthiness level of the sustainability report. An audit carried out by a third part is also believed to enhance the trustworthiness view of the sustainability report. Furthermore, the report emphasise that fund analyst’s, to a great extent, consider enterprises sustainability reports in their business analysis. Sustainability reports are found to believe of great significance because they constitute an essential basis for future investment appraisals and valuations. / Sammanfattning         Datum: 29 maj 2017   Nivå: Magisteruppsats i företagsekonomi, 15 ECTS   Institution: Akademin för Ekonomi, Samhälle och Teknik, EST, Mälardalens högskola   Författare: Manuel Yakob & Siham Belawni   Titel: Fondanalytikers trovärdighetssyn och användning av hållbarhetsrapporter   Handledare: Stefan Schiller   Nyckelord: Hållbarhetsrapport, hållbarhetsredovisning, fondanalytiker, fondförvaltare, trovärdighet Frågeställning:             - Vad anser fondanalytiker kännetecknar trovärdighet i företagens frivilliga hållbarhetsrapporter? - Hur väl använder sig fondanalytiker av hållbarhetsrapporter i deras företagsanalyser? Syfte: Syftet med denna studie är att bidra med kunskap för vad som utmärker trovärdighet gällande företagens hållbarhetsredovisning samt studera hållbarhetsrapportens betydelse och användning för fondanalytiker. Metod: Studien antar en kvalitativforskningsmetod med semistrukturerade telefonintervjuer som datainsamlingsmetod. Slutsats: Studiens resultat uppvisar att det förekommer ett flertal faktorer som har en påverkande effekt på trovärdigheten i företagens hållbarhetsrapporter. Bland annat nämns redovisning av företagens mål samt identifiering av dess hållbarhetsrisker och utmaningar som trovärdighetshöjande faktorer. En oberoende parts granskning av hållbarhetsrapporter anses även höja rapportens trovärdighetsnivå. Vidare framhåller studien att fondanalytiker, i stor utsträckning, beaktar hållbarhetsrapporter i deras företagsanalyser. Hållbarhetsrapporterna anses vara av betydelse då rapporten utgör ett viktigt underlag för framtida investeringsbeslut och värderingar.

Workflow systems orchestrate various business tasks to attain an objective. Web services can be leveraged to handle individual tasks. Before anyone intends to leverage service components, it is imperative and essential to evaluate the trustworthiness of these services. Therefore, choosing a trustworthy service has become an important decision while designing a workflow system. Trustworthiness can be defined as the likelihood of a service functioning as it is intended. Selection of a service that satisfies business goals involves collecting relevant information such as security mechanisms, reliability, performance and availability. It is important to arrive at total trustworthiness, which incorporates all of the above mentioned multi-facet values relevant to a service. These values can be gathered and analyzed to derive the total trustworthiness of a service. Measuring trustworthiness of a service involves arriving at a suitable value that would help an end-user make a decision for the given business settings. The primary focus of this thesis is to gather relevant details and measure trustworthiness based on inputs provided by the user. A conceptual model was developed after extensive literature review to identify factors that influence trustworthiness of a service. A mechanism was created to gather concept values for a given service and utilize those values to calculate trustworthiness index value. A proof-of-concept prototype was also developed. The prototype is a web-based application that implements the mechanism to measure the trustworthiness of the service. The prototype was evaluated using a scenario-based analysis method to demonstrate the utility of the trustworthiness mechanism using three different scenarios. Results of the evaluation shows that trustworthiness is a multidimensional concept, the relevant conceptual values can be collected, a trustworthiness index value can be calculated based on the gathered concepts, and a trustworthiness index can be interpreted to select the most relevant service for a given requirement.

The diploma thesis deals with development of the MAGGI brand communication in order to increase its trustworthiness among customers and to strengthen its competitiveness. The current situation of the brand is defined primarily by brand identity analyzes by Kapferer and Ko Floor and by defining the competitive position of the brand. Based on the knowledge gained in the analytical part, a set of recommendations on brand communication are developed.

Third-party web APIs are becoming ever more popular as the API economy continues to grow. Software developers often integrate them into their own applications. The issue is that even if a developer thoroughly tests that their application works properly with the third-party web API, the owner of that API can completely change the code at any time, or take the API offline altogether, either temporarily or permanently. This makes for potentially less stable or reliable applications. This report attempts to determine what some of the factors are that most influence software developers’ trust in any given third party Web API. To do this, 42 individuals involved with software development were surveyed. Documentation and reliability came through as the strongest factors influencing their trust, but there is no general consensus on other factors. Further work could be done to confirm that these two factors are what influence developer trust the most, as well as work to determine which factor sought to influence developers’ trust in any given third-party web API, and thus work towards more reliable applications being developed as the API economy continues to grow.

Unappealing websites are rejected quickly upon visiting them, while visitors spend more time on visually appealing websites before judging its reliability; but to what extent can visual appeal alone carry the success of a website, and is it so powerful that good usability can be sacrificed? This paper studies the respective importance of visual appeal and usability in e-commerce as factors, in order to determine which factor plays the bigger role in generating trust and credibility for an e-commerce site, as credibility perception is highly correlated with its visual complexity. The relation between these two factors and the likelihood to make a purchase is also discussed. Two prototypes for a fictional consumer electronics e-commerce website were created: one with good design and flawed usability, and another with flawed design and good usability. These prototypes were shown to students aged 20-25 and asked which one they found more trustworthy and which they would rather make a purchase from. With the correlation between trust and purchase intention being apparent, the design of an e-commerce website for consumer electronics should focus mainly on the visual appeal. Usability seems to have some value, however it does not seem to be of the same importance as the visual appeal of the site in regards to generating trust, and consequently customers. The prototypes were constructed in Adobe XD, demonstrated with video recordings, and sent out in a survey to 70 students.

Due to the dramatical change in society coming from digitization, marketing changed from a traditional approach to a digital scene. A phenomenon that appeared as a result of this is marketing through influencers, also seen as opinion leaders in online communities. As a growing industry where both companies and influencers could earn large sums on campaigns influencers risk being exploited. New aspirants on becoming influencers with fewer followers are appearing as an alternative to the rather expensive more established influencers. This category, nanoinfluencers, appeared as a potential marketing channel for companies seeking a cost efficient alternative to influencers. Despite this, businesses choosing this way of marketing are choosing a rather new, unexplored path with no previous research made on how this might affect their Brand Equity. Thus, the aim of this study is to, from a business perspective, identify which effects collaborations with nanoinfluencers have on companies/businesses Brand Equity. Through a qualitative cross sectional study, based on a deductive approach, four semi structured interviews were conducted with marketeers from companies using Influencer Marketing as part of their marketing strategy. The results were compared using a theoretical frame of reference based on communication theories, Brand Equity and trust theories. Results indicated that using marketing through nanoinfluencers could lead to several benefits in terms of trustworthiness and engagement for companies (seeking alternatives to larger influencers). However, the results also showed that collaborations with nanoinfluencers are more difficult to control because it does not contain any monetary compensation or precise instructions as to the content creation. However, the companies in the study opine that their strong brand awareness protected their brand from this potential negative impact. / I och med digitaliseringen har samhället skådat en drastisk utveckling vilket inneburit att marknadsföringen har gått från en traditionell form till digital. Som ett resultat av digitaliseringen har marknadsföring genom influencers, även kallade opinionsledare online, blivit allt vanligare. Industrin växer lavinartat och både företag och influencers kan tjäna stora pengar på kampanjer online men med risk att överexploatera sina varumärken. Följaktligen har en ny aspirerande kategori influencers med färre antal följare vuxit fram som ett potentiellt kostnadseffektivt alternativ till de kostsamma, etablerade influencers på sociala medier. Denna kategori influencers är så kallade nanoinfluencers. Då det inte finns tidigare forskning som studerat huruvida denna form av samarbeten påverkar företags Brand Equity kan detta vara ett riskfyllt sätt att marknadsföra sig via. Därför är syftet med denna studie att, från ett företagsperspektiv, kartlägga vilka effekter samarbeten med nanoinfluencers får på företags Brand Equity. Genom en kvalitativ tvärsnittsstudie baserad på en deduktiv forskningsansats har fyra semi-strukturerade intervjuer genomförts med marknadsförare från företag som tillämpar influencers i sin marknadsföringsstrategi. Empirin jämfördes genom att utgå från en teoretisk referensram bestående av kommunikationsteori, Brand Equity och förtroendeteori. Resultatet indikerade att marknadsföring via nanoinfluencers kan leda till flera fördelar i form av ökad trovärdighet och ökat engagemang. Vidare visade resultaten dock att samarbeten med nanoinfluencers är svårare att kontrollera eftersom de ofta inte erhåller någon ekonomisk ersättning och heller inte får specifika instruktioner i sitt innehållsskapande. Slutligen påvisar studiens resultat att en stark varumärkeskännedom kan förebygga en eventuell negativ effekt på företags Brand Equity.

Background: Social media have had a big influence on consumers engagement and the upcoming of social media influencers. Social media influencers are often seen as people who are similar to their audience and could be seen as strong opinion leaders. Social media influencer marketing is becoming more and more beneficial for businesses to implement in their marketing strategy. In order to know how to choose the right SMI for the cause, it could be useful to consider four specific characteristics of social media influencers. The characteristics have previously been examined in quantitative research, focusing on the relationship between the characteristics and purchase intention. Therefore, a certain need to explore how this relationship influence consumers’ purchase intentions has been identified. Purpose: The purpose of the study was to explore how consumers purchase intentions are influenced by social media influencers characteristics. The question that was asked in the study was how does each of the characteristics of social media influencers influence consumers’ purchase intentions. Methodology: This thesis used a qualitative approach and was of exploratory nature. The data was gathered through unstructured in-depth interviews based on a purposive sample considering the age group (millennials born between 1980-1996) as well as the participants frequently consuming social media influencers. The researchers verified theoretical saturation at six interviews. Conclusion: The main findings of this thesis entail how consumers’ purchase intentions are influenced by social media influencers characteristics. What was concluded is that there are eight categories that explain how the respondents thought that social media influencers can achieve with being attractive, being perceived as similar to their consumers, being authentic and being trustworthy in order to influence their purchase intentions.