Research question: How do the source credibility dimensions in influencer marketing affect the Swedish consumer's purchase intentions, based on different demographics?  Purpose:  The purpose of this study is to investigate which dimensions of social media influencers' perceived credibility mostly influence the purchase intentions of Swedish consumers​. Method: Quantitative method. Results: The study found that physical and social attractiveness significantly influence Swedish consumers' purchase intentions, with trustworthiness also positively correlated but less predictive in regression analysis. Expertise did not significantly affect purchase intentions. Age correlated positively with perceived expertise and negatively with attractiveness, while educational background had no significant impact on credibility dimensions​. Conclusion: The study concludes that physical and social attractiveness significantly impact Swedish consumers' purchase intentions, with trustworthiness also important. Expertise is valued more by older consumers, indicating that influencer marketing should focus on attractiveness for younger audiences and expertise for older ones.

This study extends the Theory of Planned Behavior by drawing on research investigating the 'halo effect,' which posits that physically attractive people are more likely to be hired, get a raise, perceived positively, and/or live happily within certain professions. Extant work has shown this trend is not generalizable across all fields. For example, scientists who are viewed as relatively unattractive and unsociable are perceived as producing higher quality research compared to their more attractive and sociable counterparts. The fitness industry, and the bodybuilding community in particular, presents an interesting issue where muscularity is an indicator of expertise and credibility, however, for female bodybuilders a muscular physique may diminish her perceived attractiveness and diminish such evaluations. Drawing on the Theory of Planned Behavior, this study examines how muscularity influences assessments of attractiveness, credibility, and homophily and indirectly influences participants' attitudes and perceived control over theory own weight lifting behavior. Though the hypothesized model was not a good fit, an exploratory respecification of the proposed model shows physical attractiveness plays a central role in assessments of homophily, credibility, and attitude. / Master of Arts / There has been a recent increased focus on the fitness and health industries over the past decade. With the expansion of photo-based social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook, there has been an emphasis on individuals representing more physically fit and athletic body types. Many of these female “fitness models” and social media influencers break typical gender norms and are depicted as more muscular than the traditional female thin ideal. These social media influencers are arguably judged on their physical attractiveness, homophily, and credibility with regards to exercise and nutrition. This online experiment looks to identify if muscularity plays a role in how participants perceive two of these female bodybuilders on physical attractiveness, credibility, and homophily, and indirectly perceives their attitudes and perceived control to weight lift. This is accomplished by using a questionnaire consisting of 68 questions pertaining to the thin ideal, muscular ideal, physical attractiveness, credibility, homophily, attitude, and perceived behavioral control. Physical attractiveness was found to be a driving force for attitude and perceived behavioral control to weight lift. These results provide practical implications for society as we continue to judge women based on their physical attractiveness.

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of management altering its tone in communications on participants' perceptions of management credibility. Management's tone in communicating with participants was manipulated using communications from management under two treatment conditions. In period one of the study management's tone was manipulated within the management statement on internal controls as required by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board's (PCAOB) Auditing Standards No. 2. In period one, participants had no knowledge of management's prior forecasting accuracy. Consistent with predicted hypotheses, the findings reveal that management can increase its credibility with participants by communicating its empathy, responsiveness, and understanding. Management's increased credibility was measured using both a validated credibility scale and by examining participants' reliance on management's forecasts. In period two of the study all participants had knowledge of management's forecast failure in period one. The results from period two found that tone could impact the rating of management's credibility when management had previously failed to meet a forecast but that tone had no impact on participant's changes in their earnings per share estimates after management had previously failed to meet a forecast.

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<p>Many industrial organizations invest heavily in modeling and simulation (M&S) to support the design process. The primary business motivation for M&S is as a cheaper and faster alternative for obtaining information towards a better understanding of system behavior or to help with decision making. However, M&S predictions are known to be inexact because models and simulations are mathematical approximations of reality. To ensure that models are applicable for their intended use, organizations must collect evidence that the M&S is credible. Verification, validation, and uncertainty quantification (VVUQ) are the established methods for collecting this evidence. Structured frameworks for building credibility in M&S through VVUQ methods exist in the scientific literature but these frameworks and methods are generally not well developed, nor well implemented in industrial environments. The core motivation of this work is to help make existing VVUQ frameworks more suitable for industry.</p> <p>As part of this objective, this work proposes a new credibility assessment that turns VVUQ results into an intuitive, numerical decision-making metric. This credibility assessment, called the Credibility Index, identifies the important aspects of credibility, extracts the relevant VVUQ results, and converts the results into an overall Credibility Index score (CRED). This CRED score is unique for each specific prediction scenario and serves as an easy-to-digest measure of credibility. The Credibility Index builds upon widely accepted definitions of credibility, well-established VVUQ frameworks, and decision theory.</p> <p>The Credibility Index has been applied to several prediction scenarios for two publicly available benchmark problems and one Rolls-Royce funded subsystem case; all examples relate to the aerodynamic design of turbine-engine compressors. The results from these studies show how the Credibility Index serves as a decision-making metric, supplements traditional M&S outputs, and guides VVUQ efforts. A product feedback study, involving model end-users in industry, compared the Credibility Index to three other established credibility assessments; the study provides evidence that CRED consistently captures all key aspects of information quality when informing end-users on the credibility of model predictions. Due to the industry partnership, this research already has multiple avenues of practical impact, including implementation of the structured VVUQ and credibility framework in an industrial toolkit and workflow. </p>

The aim of thesis is to evaluate the current practice of assessing the credibility of testimony in criminal proceedings and reflect on its current issues. In particular, it is necessary to resolve the question of the extent to the competence of an expert-psychologist in assessing process and the establishment of basic criteria according to which the experts proceed. I have chosen this topic because it's connecting criminal law and psychology which is important for society and a highly discussed in this time. Assessing the credibility is one of usual requests for expert psychologists from investigative, prosecuting and adjudicating bodies and it is also the most common, but often the most difficult part of psychological expertise. The thesis is composed of four chapters. The first chapter deals with the history of assessing the credibility. The second chapter describes the psychological expertise in criminal proceedings in our country and consists of four parts dealing with experts, expertise and evidence and evaluation of evidence in criminal procedure. The third chapter looks at assessing the credibility as a problem of professionals and it contains four parts. The first part defines the basis for assessing the credibility, the second part defines fundamental terms. The third part describes verbal and...

This thesis examines how female consumers’ self-esteem may impact an influencer’s ability to create a purchase through suggesting and testing a developed conceptual model. The Source credibility model, Similarity and Tie-strength were utilized as underlying theoretical frameworks. Five different independent variables were identified; Source- Attractiveness, Trustworthiness, Expertise, Similarity, and Tie-strength, which were evaluated in relation to the dependent variable; Purchase intention. Lastly, Self-esteem was introduced as a moderating variable. The goal with the conceptual model was to gain a deeper understanding of how a consumer’s self-esteem may affect their purchasing behavior, as well as which factors that may influence their purchase intention. A quantitative research method was used, and ten hypotheses were developed from the conceptual model.    To test the hypotheses and answer the research questions, a questionnaire was distributed with the use of snowball sampling. Overall, 1029 Swedish females who followed an influencer on a social media participated in the survey. It was stated in the results and the analysis that all five independent variables had a significant positive relation on the consumer’s purchase intention. However, data shows that a consumer’s self-esteem solely had a relation on two of the five independent variables; Trustworthiness &amp; Tie-strength. Trustworthiness was found to have a negative relation to the purchase intention, while Tie-strength was found to have a positive relation. A content analysis was conducted in order to identify other factors that the participants in the survey felt had a significant impact on why they followed their favorite influencer. The result of the content analysis identified two more factors that may impact the ability of an influencer to create a purchase. These were the Entertainment value and the Core values of the influencer.

<p>U radu je istraženo kako čitaoci prihvataju savete na blogovima. U<br />radu je integrisan model prihvatanja tehnologije (eng. Technology<br />Acceptance Model) sa dualnim procesnim modelima informacionog<br />uticaja, a u cilju dobijanja teorijskog modela za prihvatanje saveta. U<br />modelu je istaknut značaj korisnosti i kredibilnosti saveta kao<br />medijatora u procesu prihvatanja saveta.<br />Dualni procesni modeli su u radu primenjeni u cilju otkrivanja<br />faktora koji doprinose korisnosti informacija, u različitom<br />postupku obrade tih informacija. Istraživanje je sprovedeno na<br />SAAS platformi Beeshaper. Primenjena je mešovita metoda<br />istraživanja. Prvo je sproveden intervju na uzorku od 25 blogera od<br />uticaja. Nakon toga je sprovedeno kvantitativno istraživanje sa 356<br />korisnika koji dobijaju savete na blogovima. Istraživanjem je potvrđen<br />predloženi model.<br />Komunikacija na internetu sve više dobija na značaju u poslednjim<br />godinama. Rezultati istraživanja predlažu model za razumevanje<br />transfera znanja na platformi bloga, kroz računarski podržanu<br />komunikaciju.</p> / <p>The paper explores the way readers accept advice on blogs. The paper<br />integrates the Technology Acceptance Model with dual process information<br />model, in order to obtain a theoretical model for advice adoption. The model<br />emphasizes the importance of the usefulness and credibility of eWOM as the<br />mediators in the process of advice adoption.<br />Dual process models are applied in the paper to identify the factors that<br />contribute the usefulness of information, in a different process of elaboration<br />of these information. The research was conducted on the SAAS platform<br />Beashaper. A mixed method of research was conducted. The first part of the<br />reseach was an interview with the sample of 25 influencers. After qualitative<br />part of the study, a quantitative survey was conducted on the sample of 356<br />users who adopted blog advice. The study confirmed the proposed model.<br />Communication on the Internet is gaining significance in the recent years.<br />This research suggest a model for understanding knowledge transfer on the<br />blog platform, through computer-based communication.</p>