Significant attempts have been made by national governments to provide services and information on the Internet via information and communication technologies. However, the accomplishment of these efforts strongly depends on how the targeted users, such as citizens, trust, use and adopt such services. As a consequence, a common interest in understanding the adoption and diffusion of electronic government has emerged in both developed and developing countries. Several impediments could prevent citizens from adopting e-government services such as trust, which consider as one of the major barriers. Many citizens are reluctant to adopt e-government services due to lack of trust, and this concern are not without merit. Citizens' confidence in government and technology is a salient inducer to the wide distribution of e-government adoption. Several studies that have focused on the adoption of e-government services have suggested that trust is a cornerstone for long-term e-government adoption. Therefore, this study aims to break down the complicated concept of trust to understand the factors that build citizens’ trust and the influence of citizens’ trust on the behavioural intention to use and adopt e-government services in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This study focuses on understanding the impact of trust, trustworthiness and social influence on citizens’ willingness to use and adopt e-government services. In addition, it propose a model of trust that comprised of trustworthiness of government agencies, trust in the Internet, trust propensity, trust in e-government and social influence. To fulfil this aim, a quantitative research approach was employed to explore the role of citizen’s trust in e-government in Saudi Arabia, using a survey. This phase was followed by a qualitative research approach using semi-structured interviews to achieve deep understanding of any outstanding results from the conducted survey. From the data analysis, it is evident that all the exogenous variables—government ability, government benevolence and integrity, trust in Internet, trust propensity and social influence—were found to significantly affect citizens’ trust in e-government services. In addition, citizens' trust in e-government and social influence were found to be significant predictors of citizens' behavioural intentions to use e-government services. This study contributes by providing a conceptual model that is useful for studying citizen’s trust and usage behavioural of e-government services in Saudi Arabia.

This study endeavours to conceptualise the corporate trust construct and its relationship with corporate reputation more holistically, to address the current perceived lack of conceptual clarity of the relationship between these two constructs. The key premise of this study is that a for-profit organisation’s ability to generate sustainable wealth over time and ensure its own long-term economic sustainability is related to its relationship with its entire stakeholder network. Since an organisation is dependent on its stakeholders’ approval, commitment and supportive behaviour, it is important to understand what influences and drives their perceptions and assessment of an organisation, and their decision to support it. This highlights the importance of understanding the relationship between corporate reputation and corporate trust. For this purpose this researcher has developed a conceptual model founded on basic, theoretical research, with the aim of clarifying current and existing theory and providing a new theoretical perspective. A conceptual model is a simplified and systematic representation of reality, which is made explicit in some abstract form. The descriptive and explicative properties of a model delineate the complex elements of the system more clearly, which fosters systematic thinking and enhances understanding. The model developed as the result of this study suggests an inverse direction to the generally accepted view in current literature of the relationship between corporate trust and corporate reputation. Where trust is usually regarded as an attribute or antecedent of corporate reputation, this study has conceptualised trust as an outcome of corporate reputation and as the more comprehensive construct in the relationship. Corporate reputation has been conceptualised as being merely a means to an end – to earn stakeholders’ trust and thus their commitment and continued support – and not as an end in itself. Trustworthiness, and not trust, has been identified as the key driver of corporate reputation. Seven key areas in which an organisation should display its trustworthiness have been identified. These are proposed as the new antecedents of corporate reputation in order to build a reputation that will lead to stakeholders’ trust and support. Finally, recommendations have been made and the areas requiring further research have been identified. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / Marketing Management / PhD / Unrestricted

The business is a part of our everyday life. With the advent of information technology and networks, especially the Internet, the communication with a tradesman substantially changed. The customer is no longer in direct contact with the seller and there is a question of trust, whether or not the transaction realized. It is also the essence of this work. It aims primarily to identify particular factors of trust and trustworthiness in electronic commerce. Among its other aims belong the illustration of these factors in practice to existing shop and also make up a kind of manual for the creation of e-shop, which will give the customer the feeling of the biggest trust. The study is divided into three parts. The first of them is theoretical and describes the results of foreign studies that have been made in connection with the trust on the Internet. In the second part is outlined a brief look at home market, Czech, through available documents and a questionnaire investigation. And the last part is practical. Part of it is a look at particular factors of trust in the existing e-shop and a procedure for creating a new e-commerce with the use of gained knowledge. Master's thesis may, in practice, serve customers who use it in determining the trustworthiness of the tradesman. Also in this study may incipient tradesman find facts that can help them to create and running of a trusted e-commerce.

Over the past decade, there has been a change in the citizen–government relationship. Citizens have moved from a traditional face–to–face communication with their government, to an electronic interaction through the use of e–government systems. Emerging technology has enabled citizens to communicate with their government remotely. However, trust in e–government systems has been a problem. E–government systems lack personal interaction, and this creates resistance and uncertainty. Citizens also have a concern about turning over information to the government due to the concern that the information could be used to harm them. This predictive study was designed to determine citizens’ trust in e–government systems. In Phase one, a key list of e–government’s information quality (IQ) characteristics was developed through literature research, and via an open–ended questionnaire delivered to a focus group of about 20 citizens. After the first phase, key IQ factors that affect trust in e–government systems were determined using Keeney’s approach. IQ characteristics collected from the open–ended questionnaire in the first phase were grouped based on their similarities and categorized based on the four IQ categories proposed by Y. W. Lee (1997). In Phase two, 363 citizens were surveyed via the Internet to determine their level of trust in e–government systems. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) via principal component analysis (PCA) was used to determine the key IQ factors that affect citizens’ trust in e–government systems. A theoretical model was proposed, and the ordinal logistic regression (OLR) statistical method was used to formulate model and test predictive power. OLR developed the predictive model using IQ factors as the independent variables and trust as the dependent variables. OLR helped determine the relative weight of each of the IQ factors when predicting user’s trust in e–government systems. Based on the results, the three IQ factors: accuracy/dependability, accessibility/completeness, and representational were confirmed to have positive weights on citizens’ trust in e–government systems. Additionally, results demonstrated that two factors – –accessibility/completeness and representational had a significant contribution to trust. Accuracy/dependability showed a positive weight on the dependent variable, trust, but was not a significant contributor to trust. Results from the Mann–Whitney U Test determined that there were no significant differences between males and females on trust in e–government systems. The study makes two important contributions to the Information Systems body of knowledge. First, it investigated the IQ factors that citizens feel are important in e–government systems. IQ is important for information systems success. IQ in e–government systems is important for persuading citizens to trust e–government systems. Second, it investigated key IQ factors contributing to citizens’ trust in e–government systems. Trust in the IQ of e–government systems is crucial to the success of such Web–based technology due to its involvement with most citizenry as users.

Endorsement is a popular marketing communications tool that has been used by marketers for many years. However, traditional methods of marketing are now being surpassed as sophisticated consumers become more cynical and seek out unofficial, noncommercial information about brands. Due to the advent of technology, consumers are able to communicate independently via the internet in order to seek out, and provide, their own endorsements for products and brands. This study differentiates between different forms of dependent (paid-for) endorsements and independent (non-paid-for) endorsements; namely regular consumer endorsements, expert endorsements and association endorsements, and investigates their relative effects on brand trust. In addition, this study introduces a new form of endorsement, namely implied independent association endorsement, and tests its effect on brand trust. First, a conceptual framework of the structure of the relationship between endorsements and brand trust was compiled from relative endorsement literature. The study then investigated these relationships amongst South African nutritional supplement users who make use of the Internet to gather product information. The study made use of an Internetbased experimental research design. The study divided subjects into two experimental groups and one control group. The effect of each form of endorsement on brand trust was tested comparatively between the groups. The measurement instrument used to measure brand trust was an adapted version of the brand trust scale (BTS) designed by Delgado-Ballester (2004:573-592). Three one-way between-groups ANOVAs were conducted to compare the variability of brand trust scores between the different experimental groups. The covariate brand familiarity was included to account for previous experience with the brand used in the experiment. One-way between-groups ANCOVA’s were used to control the potential confounding that the covariate brand familiarity had on each dependent variable. The results indicate that neither dependent nor independent regular consumer endorsements have an affect on brand trust scores. However, whilst independent expert and independent association endorsements do significantly influence brand trust scores, dependent expert and dependent (implied independent) association endorsements do not. Finally, it was found that independent endorsements have a greater affect on brand trust scores than dependent (implied independent) endorsements in the association endorsement category. The first implication for managers is that different forms of endorsement influence brand trust differently, therefore, managers should be able to distinguish between different forms of endorsement available to them to use in their marketing communications mix. Secondly, managers should start investigating methods of monitoring or influencing independent expert and association endorsements to benefit from their positive influence on brand trust, which in turn has a positive affect on brand equity, consumer loyalty, brand extension acceptance and retailer re-purchases decisions. Copyright / Dissertation (MCom)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Marketing Management / MCom / Unrestricted

The concept of “social capital” has received considerable attention these years. Yet, few studies have explored the connections between social capital and bank risk-taking. In this study, I discuss the theory of social capital and its relevance to financial market behavior, and then I analyze the relationship between social capital and bank risk-taking across countries. To measure social capital, I follow Knack and Keefer (1997) and use the data of trust and civic norms collected from the World Values Survey. My measure of bank risk-taking is the nature logarithm of Z-score of each bank. Empirical results show that bank risk-taking is lower in countries where social capital is higher. It is also shown that the impact of social capital is stronger when the level of education in the country is lower. This paper investigates the negative impact of social capital on non-performing loan as well.

This dissertation is mainly a study of the nature of trusts and their daily operational limitations, which are frequently misunderstood and/or misused. My research question was whether a trust could be sold, and if so, what the tax implications of such a ‘sale’ would be. The overall approach was to perform a literature review and a critical analysis of current information available on South African trust law and the Transfer Duty Act 40 of 1949. Many studies have been undertaken in the past on various aspects of my subject, but the subject has never been studied as a cohesive whole. These studies formed the basis of the literature review. To arrive at an answer, an analysis of the available literature and South African judgments was undertaken. My concluding chapter gives an indication of whether a trust can be ‘sold’, what the current transfer duty implications are and what it is submitted they should be. / Dissertation (LLM)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / hb2014 / Mercantile Law / unrestricted

Dans notre quotidien, le smartphone est devenu un outil indispensable pour effectuer nos tâches courantes. Accéder à des services en ligne depuis son téléphone mobile est devenu une action commune. Afin de s'authentifier à ces services parfois sensibles, la seule protection est généralement l'usage d'un mot de passe. Ces mots de passe pour être robustes doivent être de plus en plus longs. Ceci représente, sur les téléphones mobiles, une contrainte plus forte que pour les ordinateurs de bureau puisque les claviers tactiles disposent de moins de touches. D'autres méthodes d'authentification ont vu le jour sur téléphones mobiles comme la reconnaissance faciale sur les appareils android ou bien l'empreinte digitale qui gagne le marché des smartphones et même le domaine bancaire avec Apple Pay.Afin de simplifier l'authentification, la biométrie prend une part de plus en plus importante dans l'usage des téléphones mobiles. Au delà des capteurs dédiés à l'acquisition de données biométriques, il est aussi possible d'utiliser l'environnement du téléphone mobile pour authentifier les utilisateurs. Si les méthodes d'authentification tendent à se transformer pour devenir de plus en plus transparentes, cela amène deux questions :Comment utiliser ces nouvelles techniques d'authentification dans les processus actuels d'authentification ?Quels impacts ces nouvelles méthodes peuvent avoir sur la vie privée des utilisateurs ?L'objectif de cette thèse est de proposer des méthodes d'authentification transparentes qui soient respectueuses de la vie privée des utilisateurs tout en permettant leur intégration dans les systèmes actuels d'authentification.Dans le manuscrit de thèse, nous abordons ces deux questions en analysant tout d'abord les travaux existants sur la collecte des données permettant l'authentification sur téléphone mobile. Puis, une fois les données collectées, nous verrons les processus permettant la mise en place d'une authentification respectueuse de la vie privée. Enfin, nous évaluons concrètement ces méthodes d'authentification par la réalisation de prototypes à l'échelle industrielle. / In our daily life, the smartphone became an unavoidable tool to perform our common tasks.Accessing to online services from its mobile phone is an usual action.In order to authenticate to those services, that might be sensitive, the one and only protection is usually a password. Those passwords must be longer and longer to stay robust.This is a bigger constraint on mobile phones than on desktop computers.Other authentication solutions are dedicated to smartphones, like facial recognition on android and now Apple smartphones or the fingerprint that conquier new phones.To ease the authentication process, biometrics is more and more often used on mobile phones. In addition to the dedicated biometric sensors, it is also possible to use the phone environement to authenticate users.However, if authentication methods are becoming more and more transparent, it brings two questions:How to integrate those new methods within the actual authentication framework ?What is the impact of those new methods on users' privacy ?The main goal of the phD is to offers privacy compliant transparent authentication methods while integrating them in current authentication systems.In this document, we evaluates those two questions by first analyzing existing works on the data collection for transparent authentication on mobile phones. Then, once the data are collected, we will see wich process can enable the privacy protection. To conclude, we will evaluates concretly those solutions by building industrial prototypes.

Background: In South Africa, tuberculosis (TB) is the leading cause of death, and Cape Town is among the three cities in the country with the highest TB burden. Despite implementation of Directly Observed Treatment Short-Course (DOTS), and improvements in the organisation and delivery of TB care, poor treatment adherence challenges treatment outcomes and the health system's ability to reach international targets. TB requires long-term care, where the relationship with healthcare providers is one of the important influences on decisions to seek care and adhere to treatment. This study sought to explore and deepen insight into how trust is built and experienced between patients and healthcare providers for TB treatment in primary care settings from a gender perspective. Methods: The research was located in three local government-managed clinics in the City of Cape Town's Metropole health district, similar in TB patient load and performance indicators, but differing in level of TB-HIV integrated services. A case study design employing qualitative data collection approaches (non-participant observations in clinics, focus group discussions and in-depth interviews with patients and providers) was applied. Findings: Trust plays a central role for both patients and providers in treatment for TB. On the part of patients, many expressed a deep desire and motivation to complete their treatment. However, patient vulnerability, a complex outcome of intersecting factors at all levels (personal, community and health service level), across which gender was an underlying influence, emerged as a critical influence over patient trust in providers and the health system, with consequences for a range of outcomes including treatment adherence. The ability of providers and the health system as an institution to recognise and respond to patient vulnerability and needs beyond the illness, including to access socio-economic and psycho-social support for the patient, was critical for building trust and enabling adherence. On the part of healthcare providers, vulnerability was a consequence of a range of factors, including professional status and gender, with implications for how trust was built in patients and managers and its outcomes. Patient trustworthiness was based on judgements of competency, integrity and recognition. The ability of managers to mitigate the challenges healthcare providers faced, through providing a supportive and enabling work environment, had implications for providers' experiences and judgements of institutional trustworthiness. Conclusion: Reflecting on the findings within broader national, provincial and global health policy reforms, specific strategies for building patient and provider trust in each other, and in the health system, are proposed. Recommended strategies addressing both patient and provider vulnerabilities rooted in the personal, community and health facility environment are considered. While many of the recommendations are specific to the TB and TB/HIV model of care, they have wider relevance for building mutual trust between patients and providers and enhancing the responsiveness of the health system as a whole. This is important in the context of South Africa, where the vision espoused under proposed National Health Insurance reforms towards universal coverage is transformative, even revolutionary, but its implementation and ultimate achievements are likely to be dogged by challenges of patient and provider trust in the health system, unless themselves addressed. Globally, the study's conclusions also offer important insights about patient-provider trust relevant to health system development, as well as ideas for future, related research.

Customers are increasingly shopping online, which has led to the emergence of e-loyalty. Despite the fact that the definition of e-loyalty is widely accepted, there are a variety of customer-focused approaches to establishing it. Past studies on this subject have provided various arguments.  Using a qualitative research method and focusing on three major antecedents (E-satisfaction, E-Trust, and E-wom/Reputation) and the factors that influence those antecedents, the aim of this research is to investigate how e-loyalty is formed from the customer's perspective.  Six semi-structured interviews were performed with persons characterized as frequent online consumers. The empirical investigation was supported by thematic coding.  This research resulted in a new proposed conceptual model that illustrates how the websites' content, assurance, convenience, and interactivity lead to the formation of e-loyalty online, from the customers’ perspective.