International trust is a perception about how people can trust other nations, it can also be an explanation for people¡¦s perception about the nature of international environment. The study shows that when people have higher levels of international trust, they are more optimistic about the nature of international environment¡Fon the contrary, people are more pessimistic about the nature of international environment. There are many variables that can influence international trust, and political trust is one of the most influential. Therefore, I try to analyze international trust and political trust in Taiwan through telephone interviews and intend to testify my hypotheses. Furthermore, I will make international trust a standard for people¡¦s attitude towards foreign aids in order to respond to revisionists¡¦ point of view. Thus, we can prove that people surely can form their own information shortcut and express their own feelings without the suggestion of political elites.

In recent years Crowdsourced, or Volunteered, Geographic Information (CGI, VGI), has emerged as a large, up-to-date and easily accessible data source. Primarily attributable to the rise of the Geoweb and widespread use of location enabled technologies, this environment of widespread innovation has repositioned the role of consumers of spatial information. Collaborative and participatory web environments have led to a democratisation of the global mapping process, and resulted in a paradigm shift to the consumer of geographic data also acting as a data producer. With such a large and diverse group of participants actively mapping the globe, the resulting flood of information has become increasingly attractive to authoritative mapping agencies, in order to augment their own spatial data supply chains. The use of CGI would allow these agencies to undertake continuous improvement of their own data and products, adding a dimension of currency that has previously been unattainable due to high associated costs. CGI, however, through its diversity of authorship, presents a quality assurance risk to these agencies should it be included in their authoritative products. Until now, this risk has been insurmountable, with CGI remaining a “Pandora’s Box” which many agencies are reluctant to open. This research presents an algorithmic model that overcomes these issues, by quantifying trust in CGI in order to assess its implied quality. Labeled “VGTrust”, this model assesses information about a data author, its spatial trust, as well as its temporal trust, in order to produce an overall metric that is easy to understand and interpret. The VGTrust model will allow mapping agencies to harness CGI to augment existing datasets, or create new ones, thereby facilitating a targeted quality assurance process and minimizing risk to authoritativeness. This research proposes VGTrust in theory, on the basis of existing examinations of trust issues with CGI. Furthermore, a facilitated case study, “Building Our Footprints” is presented, where VGTrust is deployed to facilitate the capture of a building footprint dataset, the results of which revealing the veracity of the model as a measure to assess trust for these data. Finally, a data structure is proposed in the form of a “geo-molecule”, which allows the full spectrum of trust indicators to be stored a data structure at feature level, allowing the transitivity of this information to travel with each feature following creation. By overcoming the trust issues inherent in CGI, this research will allow the integration of crowdsourced and authoritative data, thereby leveraging the power of the crowd for productive and innovative re-use.

På grund av alla redovisningsskandaler efter det senaste millennieskiftet diskuteras detmycket kring hur förtroendet för revisorer har påverkats. Enronskandalen som inträffade iUSA, var en av de största skandalerna som påverkade hela världens ekonomi. Även i Sverigeförekommer det redovisningsskandaler. Skandiaskandalen är en utav dessa under modern tid.Allmänheten har till följd av dessa skandaler ifrågasatt trovärdigheten i den granskningrevisorer gör i bolags finansiella rapporter. Det finns ett antal olika faktorer som ligger tillgrund för dessa skandaler. Bland de faktorer som låg till grund för skandalerna fannsintressekonflikter, exempelvis att revisorn hade hand om andra tjänster utöver revision, samtatt revisorn inte var oberoende i sin granskning. Som en naturlig effekt avredovisningsskandalerna efterfrågade allmänheten lagstiftningar och åtgärder för att repareradet skadade förtroendet. Koden var en av de åtgärder som infördes som en respons på dennasituation. Syftet med Koden är att vinna tillbaka allmänhetens förtroende för de svenskabörsnoterade bolagen och förbättra styrningen av bolagen. Det är dock inte säkert att Kodenverkligen åtgärdar problemet. Syftet med uppsatsen är att fördjupa diskussionen kringförtroendet för revisorer. Detta genom att undersöka dels huruvida Koden verkligen harpåverkat förtroendet för revisorer och dels genom att försöka identifiera de faktorer sompåverkar förtroendet för revisorer. För att kunna studera det identifierade fenomenet,förtroende för revisorer, och därmed svara på forskningsfrågorna har en kvalitativ ansatsanvänds. Resultatet av denna studie tyder på att Koden inte har haft avsevärd påverkan påförtroendet för revisorer. Dessutom identifierar studien de faktorer som faktiskt påverkarförtroendet för revisorer. En del av dessa faktorer beror på intressekonflikter och att alla parterär nyttomaximerade och andra beror på revisorns egenskaper. Dessa faktorer bör regleras merkring och förtydligas, visar vår studie, för att stärka och återupprätta det skadade förtroendetför revisorer. / As a result of a series of accounting scandals during the last turn of the millennium the debatehas revolved a great deal around how the trust for accountants has been affected. The ”EnronScandal” that occurred in the US, was one of the most immense scandals that affected theworld economy. Accounting scandals do occur in Sweden as well, the ”Skandia Scandal” isone of those scandals that have occurred in modern time. The public has questioned thecredibility in the type of review accountants do in a corporations financial reports. There are anumbers of factors that can be the cause for these scandals. Among the factors that were thecause behind these scandals, were conflicts of interest. Mainly that the accountant hadresponsibility of additional services alongside with audit, but also the independence of theaccountant. As a natural impact the public demanded legislation and legal actions to repair thedamaged trust. Swedish code for corporate governance was one of a couple of actions thatwere implemented as a response to the situation. The purpose to the code was to win back thepublics trust for the Swedish quoted companies and to improve the governance of thecorporations. It is however not quite certain that the code really is able to repair the problem.The aim of this essay is to deepen the discussion round the trust of accountants. By partlyexamining if the Swedish code for corporate governance really has impacted the trust foraccountants, and partly by trying to identify the factors that influences the trust foraccountants. To be able to study the identified phenomenon, the trust for accountants, and toaccordingly answer the questions in the research, a qualitative approach has been applied. Theresult of this study indicates that the code has not impacted the trust of accountantssignificantly. The study also identifies the factors that actually affect the trust for accountants.Some of the factors depend on conflicts of interest and that all parties are cost-benefitmaximized, others lie in the accountant’s qualities. The conclusion in our essay is that thesefactors should be increasingly regulated and explicated in order to reestablish the damagedtrust for accountants.

Simple robots are already being deployed and adopted by some consumers for use at home. The robots currently in development for home use are far more sophisticated. However, it was not know the extent to which humans would trust them. The purpose of this study was to identify factors that influence trust in domestic service robots across a range of users with different capabilities and experience levels. Twelve younger adults (aged 18-28) and 24 older adults (12 low technology users and 12 high technology users) aged 65-75 participated in a structured interview, card-sorting task, and several questionnaires. Most participants had heard about or seen robots, but indicated they had little experience with them. However, most had positive opinions about robots and indicated they would trust a robot to assist with tasks in their homes, though it was dependent on the task. Before making a decision to trust a robot, participants wanted to know a lot of information about the robot such robot reliability, capabilities, and limitations. When asked to select their trust preference for human versus robot assistance for specific tasks, participants had preferences for both human and robot assistance, although it was dependent on the task. Many participants defined trust in robots similar to definitions of trust in automation (Ezer, 2008; Jian et al., 2000). Additionally, they had high rates of selection for adjectives used to describe trust in automation and also selected some adjectives used to describe trust in humans when asked to select characteristics they most associated with trustworthy and untrustworthy robots. Overall, there were some differences between age and technology experience groups, but there were far more similarities. By carefully considering user needs, robot designers can develop robots that have the potential to be adopted by a wide range of people.

In today’s business world, strategic alliances are becoming a common method for achieving a competitive advantage towards industry rivals. This tool, however, is not a guarantee for success as the failure rate of alliances is between 30-70%. Even with this high failure rate, strategic alliances continue to grow and becoming more and more common. Through strategic alliances, the organizations can gain the possibility to access, acquire and implement new knowledge from its partners as a step to achieve competitive advantage. However, by engaging in alliances or inter-firm arrangements they also place themselves in the risk zone of giving away knowledge, both intentionally or unintentionally, which is also known as knowledge leakage. Studies have shown that trust is important in knowledge sharing, and managers must understand the role of trust and distrust in this equation, in order to be able to successfully achieve an effective and trustworthy knowledge transfer for a firm. Previous research has focused mainly on the effects of trust on knowledge sharing and a few exceptions have focused on knowledge leakage. However, these articles have been ignoring the factor of distrust. The purpose of this thesis therefore lies in investigating the effect the dimensions of both trust and distrust simultaneously have on knowledge sharing and leakage, as theory view trust and distrust as separate but co-existing concepts. The dimensions chosen for investigation are goodwill trust, competence trust, goodwill distrust and competence distrust. In order to achieve this purpose, a quantitative research method was used. A questionnaire was developed and sent out to Swedish firms operating in knowledge-intensive industries according to Eurostat. 55 companies fully completed the questionnaire. From this a factor analysis and regression analysis was conducted in order to fulfill the purpose of this thesis. This thesis found that goodwill trust has a positive effect on knowledge sharing and negative effect on knowledge leakage. Competence trust and competence distrust was found to have a positive relationship with knowledge leakage. Also, the authors developed the dimensions of goodwill and competence distrust as well as empirically proved their existence. This thesis contributes by acknowledging the importance of both concepts, trust and distrust, and also providing managers with an idea of what dimensions of trust and distrust are important when associating it to knowledge exchange.

Given the credence nature of food quality and food safety attributes, consumers cannot easily verify whether food is high quality or is safe to eat, thus they rely on abstract systems of regulation and quality signals such as brands to make informed consumption choices. In fact, trust is recognized as a rational strategy that reduces consumers’ uncertainty when purchasing goods with credence attributes. While trust in food is a topical issue in an era of increasingly complex food systems, how trust and more precisely brand trust affects consumers’ perceptions of food is a relatively new research area in food economics. This thesis aims to answer questions such as what drives trust in the actors within the Canadian food system (i.e. government, farmers, food manufacturers, and food retailers) and in food brands, and the relationship between that trust and consumer confidence in food quality and food safety. Previous studies on institutional and system trust have been carried out primarily in the sociology, marketing and political sciences disciplines, while a few studies in food economics have investigated the influence of institutional trust and reported the degree of public trust in market actors. This study extends previous research on consumer trust in the context of food by developing a conceptual model in which trust in the food system and brand trust are expected to evolve to public confidence in credence attributes and lead to consumer commitment to food brands. Inspired from a comprehensive synthesis of the literature on consumer trust, the theoretical background suggests that consumer confidence in food attributes is jointly determined by trust in the food system (system-based trust) and brand trust (product-based trust), and it is moderated by consumer characteristics (personal-based trust) – namely: risk, past consumption experience and ethically-motivated behaviour. As well, consumers are assumed to perceive an actor or a brand as trustworthy through the influence of four postulated dimensions of trust: perceived competence, credibility, benevolence and reputation. A Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) approach is used for the empirical analysis. Data were gathered through an online survey of consumers conducted across Canada in July 2012 focusing on fresh chicken and packaged green salad products. The results show that individually none of the postulated antecedents of trust (i.e. competence, credibility, benevolence and reputation) was a significant driver for trust, especially for packaged salad. Unlike previous research on institutional trust and brand trust that uses a number of separate dimensions to measure trust predominantly in non-food contexts, this thesis finds that trust in the food system and food products could be measured differently by taking into account the interactive effects of perceived competence, credibility, reputation and benevolence on public trust. As such, the findings suggest that Canadian consumers tend to trust brands of chicken and packaged salad when these products are perceived as high quality, are backed by credible information, have a good reputation and, at the same time, enhance consumers’ welfare. In fact, a brand cannot be perceived as high quality and safe to eat (brand competence) without containing transparent information signalling its quality and safety (brand credibility). Additionally, results reveal some apparent product-specific effects: brand trust matters in fostering consumer confidence in chicken but not for salad. Furthermore, trust in the food system as a whole appears to be more influential in leading to public confidence in credence attributes than trust in food brands in the case of chicken. As such, it appears that trust in actors within the food supply chain is more important than relying on individual products. As well, the analysis shows that while psychographic variables (risk aversion, past consumption experience) and some demographics (e.g. gender, education) moderate the relationship between trust in the food system and brands for chicken, this is not the case for salad. In terms of marketing implications, the results suggest that while brands are useful signalling mechanisms, trust in these brands is not the main driver for consumer confidence in credence attributes. Furthermore, the much stronger effect of system trust implies that decision-makers would benefit by investing in building trust relationships with the public. Transparent communication and credible assurances about the practices and the intentions within the food system could be a way to gain and maintain public trust and, ultimately, consumer confidence in food quality and food safety.

「信託」乃是一種代他人管理財產之制度，在十九世紀開始盛行於英美國家，該制度在運作上深具彈性，除供個人理財，並可用以從事公益活動，具有社會及經濟功能，發展至今，已逐漸從單純的財產代管制度演變成將資本交由專家創造利潤的新投資理財方式。由於信託行為於適用原有稅法時，將因法律關係之形式與實質不符的情況，而引發諸多無法對實質受益者課稅之問題，故相關稅法皆修正部分之條文，並於民國九十年五月二十九日三讀通過，至此，我國信託之法治環境終告確立。 依遺產與贈與稅法第二十四條之一規定，不問信託內容為何，只要是他益信託即按訂約日或變更契約之日，為課徵贈與稅之時點；此規定易造成徵納雙方之紛爭，甚者更造成租稅漏洞。故本文主要目的在於檢討贈與稅課徵時點，綜合參考美、日制度，將他益信託分成四種情形分別討論之，並得出下列結果： 1、 委託人喪失控制權且受益人已確實獲得受益權 原則上應以信託成立日為課稅時點，但為兼顧稽徵之便利性，故以信託契約訂約日為課徵贈與稅之時點。 2、 委託人喪失控制權但受益人未確實獲得受益權 於信託成立時為課稅時點，但為兼顧稽徵之便利性，同樣以信託契約訂約日為贈與稅之課稅時點。 3、 委託人未喪失控制權且受益人未確實獲得受益權 贈與稅遞延至受益人確實獲得信託利益時，或委託人喪失控制權時課徵。 4、 委託人未喪失控制權但受益人已確實獲得受益權 於信託成立時為贈與稅之課稅時點，同樣為兼顧稽徵之便利性，故以信託契約之訂約日為課徵贈與稅之時點。 合理之稅制不但能防堵規避租稅之不法行為，更能促進信託制度之發展，故釐清課稅時點應該只是第一步，財政部下一步應該開始思考修正現行信託課稅中不合理之處，最後一步當然是建構一部更合理之信託稅制，讓信託制度能在一個理想的稅制下發展、茁壯。 關鍵字：信託、他益信託、贈與稅 / According to Estate and Gift Tax Act Article 24-1, the date the trust deed is established or changed is the time to impose on the settler in gift tax. Under this regulation, it probably makes argument between taxpayer and tax authority, even lets taxpayer has chance to evade taxes. So the purpose of this study is to find the best time to impose on the settler in gift tax. In this study, we classify the other interest oriented trust into four situations, and then discuss the most appropriate date of gift event. Eventually we obtain four conclusions: First, at the date the trust is established. Grantor has so parted with dominion and control as to leave in him no power to change its disposition and beneficiary certainly obtains the beneficial right. The date the trust is established is the best time of gift event. Second, at the date the trust is established. Grantor has no power, and beneficiary does not obtains the beneficial right yet. The date the trust is established is the best time of gift event. Third, at the date the trust is established. Grantor has power, but beneficiary does not obtains the beneficial right yet. The date of gift event is the date beneficiary certainly obtains the beneficial right or grantor loses his power. Finally, at the date the trust is established. Grantor has power and beneficiary certainly obtains the beneficial right. The date the trust is established is the best time of gift event. Keyword: trust、other interest oriented trust、gift tax

Trust between team members is important: Research has shown that teams with higher levels of trust have a propensity to be higher performers. This study built on contemporary trust theory by examining initial interpersonal trust development between a new team member and a newly formed work-team using experimental rather than correlation-based survey methods. Undergraduate students from a metropolitan Australian university participated in a vignette experiment examining the effect of teams with varying levels of Ability, Benevolence and Integrity on trust development. It was hypothesised that these antecedents of trust do not have similar effect on our Intention to Trust as is currently depicted in Mayer, Davis and Schoorman's (1995) integrative model of organisational trust. Their model is developed by hypothesising that the type and magnitude of the information we receive about a trustee moderates the relationship between our Intention to Trust and its antecedents. Initial examination of the traditional scales identified overlaps that needed clarification. This was completed by informing existing scales and the vignette manipulations with the context specific information that emerged from the thematic analysis of structured interviews. Subsequent analyses of the questionnaire data used ANOVA and Structural Equation Modelling techniques. In testing the hypotheses, Ability was found to be most salient in the development of Intention to Trust. This research contributes methodologically by developing a vignette-based experimental method that improves the reliability of existing trust scales. The study contributes theoretically by further explaining the salience of the trust antecedents and practically by identifying that the judgment and decision-making of new workteam members can be distorted by halo bias wherein they ignore the Benevolence traits of team members of a group that exhibits high levels of Ability.

Thesis (M.A.)--Baylor University, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 35-37).

Diss. Univ. Leipzig, 2008.