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.

Det finns över 200 miljoner aktiva hemsidor till drygt 5 miljarder användare. I takt med attinternet har växt och utvecklingen gått kraftigt framåt har användare blivit mer kräsna överinnehållet på en hemsida.Varje gång en användare besöker en hemsida gör användaren ensnabb utvärdering av hemsidan för att avgöra om denne vill stanna på sidan eller lämna denpå en gång.Målet med denna studie är att titta närmare på hur webbdesign påverkar användarens val attstanna kvar på en hemsida eller inte. Studien inriktar sig på hur valet av typsnitt, bild och färgpåverkar användarens vilja att stanna kvar på hemsidan utifrån trovärdighet ochanvändbarhet.För att besvara forskningsfrågorna så skickades en enkät ut där deltagarna fick besvara denuppleva trovärdigheten och användbarheten utifrån tre designaspekter, typsnitt, bild och färgsamt se hur detta påverkar deltagarnas vilja att stanna kvar på hemsidan.Resultatet visar att alla tre designprinciper påverkade användarens vilja att stanna kvar påhemsidan. De designelementen som undersöktes påverkade användarens vilja att stanna kvarpå hemsidan i följande ordning från minst till störst påverkan: typsnitt, färg, bild.Sammanfattningsvis visar studien på att en användares benägenhet att stanna kvar på enhemsida kan öka om designen är tillfredsställande och genomtänkt. / There are over 200 million active websites for just over 5 billion users. As the internet hasgrown and technological development has progressed greatly, users have become more pickyabout the content of a website. Each time a user visits a website, the user makes a quickevaluation of the website to decide if they want to stay on the page or leave it at once.The aim of this study is to take a closer look at how web design affects the user's choice tostay on a website or not. The study focuses on how the choice of font, image and color affectsthe user's desire to stay on the website based on trustworthiness and usability.To answer the research questions, a survey was sent out where the participants had to answerthe perceived trustworthiness and usability based on three design aspects, font, image andcolor and see how this affects the participants' willingness to stay on the website.The results show that all three design principles influenced the user's willingness to stay onthe website. The design elements that were examined influenced the user's willingness to stayon the website in the following order from least to greatest impact: font, color, image.In summary, the study shows that a user's tendency to stay on a website can increase if thedesign is satisfactory and well thought out.

Social trading platforms are an increasingly popular venue for sharing investment ideas. We investigate if followers on these platforms herd, i.e., copy leader traders’ trades, to the extent that it affects stock markets. To do so, we use an event study to detect abnormal returns and trading volume after a trade is conducted by a leader trader. Furthermore, we investigate if the leader trader’s sentiment on the stock and the leader trader’s perceived trustworthiness have explanatory power over the herding behavior. We find signs of herding in terms of abnormal returns within thirty-minutes after the leader trader’s trade. However, we do not find signs of herding for longer event windows, nor do we find that the sentiment of the leader trader can explain herding. Finally, we find some signs that affect-based signals of trustworthiness can explain herding. However, most signals of trustworthiness are non-significant.

Greenwashing is a frequent issue within the FMCG industry, such as vague ecological claims and misleading communication. When a brand is accused of greenwashing it is important to understand how to manage this transgression, since both forgiveness and loyalty are concepts that are affected. Therefore, the purpose of this thesis was to investigate how brand forgiveness influences brand loyalty, within the FMCG industry, with the aim of contributing to limited research in this area. Ten interviews were conducted with loyal customers to examine how they felt and experienced two brands after perceived transgressions. The critical incident technique was used during the interviews to remind the customers of the transgressions and obtain a comprehensive view of their narratives. The results indicated that the lack of repair efforts influenced the customers to perceive the brands as dishonest and untrustworthy, which affected their unwillingness to forgive and damaged their trust. Based on the customer's perceptions and feelings regarding the brands and the specific transgressions, brand forgiveness and loyalty were influenced differently. In addition, the customer places high importance on the product quality and their relationship with the brand and would rather stay with the brand instead of switching to another if the quality and/or the relationship is strong.

Despite more than $769 million in charitable gifts in 2013, U.S. nonprofit organizations lost $735 million in lapsed and reduced gifts. Donor attrition is a problem for most charitable organizations, and many are using the Internet to cultivate donors. Online communication has become an important part of fundraising for many charitable organizations. The online communication factors in the current study include trust, credibility, and satisfaction. These factors may affect donor loyalty. Donor loyalty may increase or decrease donor attrition. Reducing donor attrition is important to anyone who plays a role in the success of a nonprofit organization. The purpose of the current cross-sectional quantitative study was to examine the relationship between the communication factors and the loyalty among online donors. The theoretical foundation for this study includes Bandura's social cognitive theory and Luhmann's social systems theory. Data were collected online from a random sample of online donors aged 18 years or older in the United States. Spearman correlation was used to assess the correlation between the independent and dependent variables. The results indicated there is a correlation between communication factors and loyalty among online donors in the United States. This study may help organizations communicate better with donors in an online environment and reduce online donor attrition. Reducing attrition will increase funding to a charitable organization through repeat donations, thereby helping improve finances to support the organization's mission and positively influencing societal change.

Background: The evidence-based approach to policymaking has greatly facilitated policymakers' capacity to make scientifically informed policy decisions, especially in the medical and public health contexts. However, this approach is most beneficial for policy development when trustworthy research is used. Predatory journals and publishers pose a potential threat to evidence-based policy making, since they are more likely than traditional academic journals to publish unreliable evidence. Research Objectives: The purpose of this thesis is to advance knowledge on what factors contribute to the citation of predatory journal articles in policy documents by answering the following research questions: 1) How do people preparing public health documents consider the trustworthiness of research evidence? 2) How do they source and evaluate the research evidence they cite? Methods: I identified a cross-sectional sample of public health policy documents from Overton - the world's largest policy document database - that cited articles published by the OMICS group. OMICS is a well-established predatory publisher. I extracted meta-data (e.g., document source) and document characteristics such as whether they described their method of selection or quality assessment for cited sources. Authors of these documents with contact information listed, as well as a convenience sample of people who have prepared public health documents, were invited for a semi-structured interview. I thematically analyzed these interviews by organizing the codes (both deductive and inductive) into key overarching themes. Results: Two hundred forty-two public health policy documents were included. The World Health Organization was the most common source accounting for 45 documents (19%). A total of 283 articles were cited from 126 OMICS journals. Only 54 (22%) of the policy documents described their source-selection methodology, and 22 (9%) assessed the quality of cited sources. Five key overarching themes were generated from the thematic analysis of the interview data, highlighting that information cited in policy documents is sourced and evaluated in several ways, many of which are related to a series of factors which could be contributing to the predatory journal citations. Conclusion: Public health policy documents are prepared using a variety of methods for information selection and evaluation, but the exact approach for doing so is rarely reported within the document itself. This may contribute to the reliance on untrustworthy research to inform policy; and thus, may help amplify misinformation entering policy globally. Certain steps can be taken to help minimize any potential negative impact of relying on such sources, but a better understanding of policymakers' perspectives may be required to ensure successful implementation.

<p>An increasing number of AEC firms are positioning themselves to expand operations in the international construction market. To undertake such decisions, it is critical for companies to analyze the risks, benefits, and future market potential of the host country. Further, companies typically select appropriate entry modes and develop business strategies to navigate the complex formal and informal institutions of the host country. The Board of directors and upper-management employees are typically involved in making such decisions. Previous researchers have identified various risks such as the political, financial, supply-chain using tools like the International Construction Risk Assessment Model (ICRAM) and the International Project Risk Assessment (IPRA). Such comprehensive models encompass various risk factors at the country, market, and project levels. At each level, data are to be collected from various sources that could be susceptible to political agenda, bias, and inaccessibility. Research findings suggest that the results provided by such models heavily rely on the credibility of the information and the information source.</p><p>First, this research provides comprehensive definitions for Information and Source Credibility with respect to the international construction decision-making domain. Second, the research proposes a framework to assist decision-makers in evaluating Information and Source credibility to rank and prioritize their sources. This research has identified (a) 5 Criteria and 20 Metrics for Information Credibility and (b) 3 Criteria and 18 Metrics for Source Credibility. Third, a survey of construction industry professionals was carried out to determine the relevancy and relative importance of the identified criteria and metrics with respect to international construction decisions. The collected survey responses have a Cronbach’s Alpha value of 0.89 which indicates that the responses are reliable for further analysis. A one-way ANOVA test was conducted to investigate the influence of the prior credibility evaluation experience of the respondents on the relative weights for the framework. The results indicate that prior evaluation experience does not significantly affect the perception of the users towards selecting and weighing the criteria and metrics.</p><p>Finally, a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) model is proposed to incorporate the proposed credibility evaluation framework with the relative weights of the criteria and metrics. An Excel-based macro-enabled tool (with a user-friendly interface) is developed to accept user inputs associated with their information and sources. A well-defined scale of measurement is developed to reduce the subjectivity and biases involved in making such abstract assessments. Final scores, Cr_Information and Cr_Source, are calculated for every piece of information and source selected by the user. The MCDM results are expected to assist users in determining the undertaking of robust decisions by incorporating one additional layer of determining the credibility of their information and prioritizing their information sources. The suggested point of application for this research is before Financial Investment Decision (pre-FID) stage to ensure sufficient time for all the stakeholders to reevaluate their FIDs.</p>