Distributed systems like e-commerce and e-market places, peer-to-peer networks, social networks, and mobile ad hoc networks require cooperation among the participating entities to guarantee the formation and sustained existence of network services. The reliability of interactions among anonymous entities is a significant issue in such environments. The distributed entities establish connections to interact with others, which may include selfish and misbehaving entities and result in bad experiences. Therefore, trustworthiness evaluation using trust management techniques has become a significant issue in securing these environments to allow entities decide on the reliability and trustworthiness of other entities, besides it helps coping with defection problems and stimulating entities to cooperate. Recent models on evaluating trustworthiness in distributed systems have heavily focused on assessing trustworthiness of entities and isolate misbehaviours based on single trust metrics. Less effort has been put on the investigation of the subjective nature and differences in the way trustworthiness is perceived to produce a composite multidimensional trust metrics to overcome the limitation of considering single trust metric. In the light of this context, this thesis concerns the evaluation of entities’ trustworthiness by the design and investigation of trust metrics that are computed using multiple properties of trust and considering environment. Based on the concept of probabilistic theory of trust management technique, this thesis models trust systems and designs cooperation techniques to evaluate trustworthiness in mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs). A recommendation based trust model with multi-parameters filtering algorithm, and multidimensional metric based on social and QoS trust model are proposed to secure MANETs. Effectiveness of each of these models in evaluating trustworthiness and discovering misbehaving nodes prior to interactions, as well as their influence on the network performance has been investigated. The results of investigating both the trustworthiness evaluation and the network performance are promising. / Ministry of Higher Education in Libya and the Libyan Cultural Attaché bureau in London

Aim:The aim of our study is to analyzeelements of online trust building process from sellers’ standpoint based on case study of Chinese website: Taobao. Method:This study was conducted in qualitative method with 12 interviewees as online sellers from Taobao website. Data presentation involves tables and figures to help readers to understand trust building process and apply it in business. Result & Conclusions: Online trust building is dynamic and interactive. Three main elements of trust building are product, communication and 3rd party. Trust building process goes through three stages: knowledge-based trust, experience-based trust, and relationship-based trust. Suggestions for future research: Limitation of generality suggests further study in quantitative method. Since it is a single case study specific in China, comparison cross-culture or between websites is also suggested as future possibilitiesto test generalizability of this theoretic framework. Contribution & implication: This study provided atheoretic framework for online trust building process in real-world context. Management implication was suggested to focus on development of product, communication and 3rdparty service for sellers and website holder

A highly debated subject today is the high level of consumption, how to reduce it and how to start consuming more sustainably. One consequence is an economy based on sharing, or so-called collaborative consumption, which has become exceedingly popular. Grounded on the controversial topic of sustainability, it enables individuals to find alternative ways to consume, namely collaborative lifestyles. The purpose of this study is to explore how interpersonal trust affects engagement in collaborative lifestyles from a gender perspective. Different types of trust, interpersonal trust and online trust, as well as aspects of trust, risk and expectation, have been scrutinized. Empirical data was collected through a qualitative method using online focus groups. The findings show that different kinds of trust affect engagement in collaborative lifestyles. Although no generalization could be made between gender, an indication of gender differences was found in risk taking when engaging in collaborative lifestyle-services. Although interpersonal trust was not the most apparent factor, online trust was found to be of importance for the participants in general. In addition, we saw an indication of younger generations relying more on online trust than interpersonal trust. This study contributes with a greater understanding of consumer behavior in relation to collaborative lifestyles. This can in turn provide companies in the industry with knowledge about their consumers and therefore advantages in market positioning.

The United States and China have been conducting extensive operational-level engagement on nuclear arms control and nonproliferation issues for more than three decades. Many policy-makers and analysts are wondering whether such engagement has contributed to more trust in the two countries' nuclear relationship. The core question that this research seeks to address is: does operational-level engagement between the United States and China increase China's trust towards the United States in their nuclear relationship? And if so, why is this the case and how does this take place? This research distinguishes strategic trust from moralistic trust and examines the impact of operational-level engagement on helping states recognize common interests and/or common moral principles. It fills the gap in existing international relations research that does not answer the question of whether and how trust arises between states that do not imagine or understand there to be common interests or shared moral principles at the inception of engagement. The research uses three cases in the U.S.-Chinese nuclear engagement to show that interaction at the operational-level brings about convergence of perception about common interests at the top-level through building of epistemic community and enhancing bottom-up communication. However, such engagement encourages realpolitik thinking in Chinese nuclear community and therefore undermines moralistic trust between the two countries.

"Svěřenský fond" - institute of intergenerational wealth preservation and succession Abstract Thesis named "Svěřenský fond - institute of intergenerational wealth preservation and succession" is dedicated to describe institution of "svěřenský fond" from the perspective of a potential alternative or addition to a more traditional institutions of inheritance law. The aim of the thesis is to describe primarily its use to a purpose of family wealth preservation and succession. In order to fulfill this goal, the first part of the thesis analyses how fiducie/trust of Quebec made its way into Czech legislation. Main matter being the consequences adoption of a patrimony by appropriation caused. Second part follows historical roots of fiduciary institutes. It finds a persistent need for very similar fiduciary, trust-like institutes throughout history. The goal stays the same, a desire of families to preserve their wealth. Historical analysis, using an evolutionist paradigm, finds similarities between trust, modern fiduciary institutes and "svěřenský fond" which simply cannot be unseen. Based on this findings a hypothesis of a common ancestor is construed. Third part describes a newly acquired construction of trust-like institute, which was unseen in Czech law until 2014. It focuses on a result of transplantation of...

School officials responsible for the growing international student populations struggle to find ways to help them navigate inconsistencies that may exist between federal regulations and institutional policies, and would benefit from increased understanding of ways to gain trust from diverse student populations. To determine whether student demographics might be related to propensity to trust, this study used the validated Propensity to Trust Scale (PTTS) by Frazier, Johnson, and Fainshmidt (2013), as well as a demographic questionnaire developed to measure students' background and educational attributes. Responses to an online survey from 576 international students from 71 countries were collected from a large private institution of higher education in the Western United States. Basic inferential statistics, including Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and post hoc analysis, identified differences among demographic groups within this student population. Findings indicated that students who were not native speakers of the dominant language had a lower propensity to trust than native English speakers, and female students had a lower propensity to trust than did male students. Findings also indicated that during the senior year of school propensity to trust was significantly lower than in earlier undergraduate years and in graduate school. Implications from this study include an emphasis on the value of considering individuals within their own unique cultural and educational contexts, and avoiding a one-size-fits-all approach to fostering trust with students. Additionally, school officials should not assume that propensity to trust is consistent among those with institutional similarities and must not stereotype students based on their backgrounds.

Arrivée à ces noces d’étain, la fiducie continue de déranger autant qu’elle déroute. Alors que tout oppose la prétendue propriété fiduciaire de la propriété, la doctrine, presque à l’unisson, défend ce mariage contre-nature. Pour administrer le patrimoine créé pour l’occasion, le fiduciaire se verrait confier la toute puissance d’un propriétaire, qu’il faudrait immédiatement s’empresser de contenir pour que fiduciant et bénéficiaire ne se retrouvent pas démunis face au fiduciaire roi dans son royaume. Pourquoi persister en ce sens ? N’est-il pas possible de puiser dans nos catégories juridiques au lieu de les épuiser ? Assurément, la réponse est positive. En replaçant l’affectation voulue par les parties au contrat au cœur de l’opération et en acceptant de sortir des sentiers battus, il est possible de rendre au fiduciaire sa véritable place, celle d’un administrateur de patrimoine doté de pouvoirs propres. L’analyse alternative proposée permettra à la fois d’éclairer le régime applicable, de lever certaines zones d’ombre et d’accroître l’efficacité de l’opération, en offrant au fiduciant et au bénéficiaire les moyens de faire face à un fiduciaire peu scrupuleux. / Introduced in the french law since ten years yet, the french trust, as know as « fiducie », keeps destabilising. While everything seems oppose that so-called fiduciary property and the real property, the doctrine preaches for assimilation. To manage the fiduciary estate, the trustee is said to own the whole power as a proprietor, but wich has to be straight away limited to spare the settler and the sestui que trust findind themeselves helpless in front of a powerfully trustee. Why then to prevail in this way ? Isn’t it possible to deal with others mechanism of the legal arsenal instead of altering it ? Doubtlessly, a positive answer has to be given. To focus attention on the allocation (affectation) and to depart from the beaten tracks, allow to take back the trustee his rightful palce : he is an estate manager provided with inherent powers. The analyse suggested succeed in explaining the legal regime, clarifying doubts and increasing effectiveness thanks to means for settler and sestui que trust to deal with a careless trustee.

The role of trust in traditional face-to-face mentoring has already been investigated in several research studies. However, to our knowledge, very few studies have examined how trust is established in electronic-mentoring relationships. The purpose of the current study is to examine by means of the Mayer et al. (1995) model how e-mentees perceive a prospective e-mentor's trustworthiness and how these perceptions influence the decision to be mentored by a particular e-mentor. A sample comprised of 253 undergraduate and graduate students from the Telfer School of Management at the University of Ottawa participated as potential mentees by completing a survey after having reviewed the selected e-mentor’s profile. The survey employed quantitative and qualitative measurements to assess the mentee's perception of the prospective e-mentor’s level of trustworthiness. In the quantitative section, both the Behavioural Trust Inventory (Gillespie, 2003) and the Factors of Perceived Trustworthiness (Mayer et al., 1999) were measured. The Behavioural Trust Inventory was designed to measure the extent to which a mentee is willing to be vulnerable in e-mentoring relationships. The Factors of Perceived Trustworthiness (ability, benevolence and integrity) were designed to measure these three attributes’ contributions to the extent to which the mentees perceived the e-mentor as being trustworthy. The factorial structure (confirmatory factor analysis) and internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha) of the constructs were examined. Structural equation modeling was conducted to test the fit of the models (Behavioural Trust Inventory and Mayer et al.) to an e-mentoring context. In the qualitative section, the indicators of trustworthiness were collected by means of an open-ended question and were analyzed by means of content analysis. The results of the quantitative analysis revealed that the models (the Behavioural Trust Inventory and the Factors of Perceived Trustworthiness) have an adequate fit with the e-mentoring model after accounting for some correlated error terms. The results of the qualitative analysis identified some other attributes (apart from ability, benevolence and integrity groups) have an influence on the extent to which the mentees perceived the e-mentor as being trustworthy. The main finding is that the Mayer et al. (1995) model appears to be a suitable device for the measurement of trust in e-mentoring relationships at the initiation phase.

Little is known about how people evaluate credence attributes, that is, those attributes which the consumer often cannot fully evaluate even after purchasing and consuming the product. And yet consumers struggle to evaluate quality in several important product categories dominated by credence attributes such as food safety, medical services, legal services, and pharmaceuticals, among others. The dissertation explores the processes by which people form quality evaluations of services high in credence attributes and the consequences of those evaluations. Drawing on the service quality, dual-process social information processing, expert-novice and risk literatures, I develop a conceptual model to illustrate how skill and motivation moderate the ways people seek and integrate observable information to infer unobservable quality. The influence of quality evaluations on outcome, satisfaction, value, and loyalty is mapped. The model is tested in the context of a classic credence service, health care services with two large datasets using structural equation modeling. Study 1 draws on an existing patient satisfaction database (6,280 records) to measure the sources and consequences of quality evaluations. Study 2 validates Study 1 findings and extends those findings to show the moderating roles of product expertise and perceived risk on quality evaluation processes. The second study is tested with 1,379 consumers (patients) drawn from an online consumer panel. The research suggests service quality in this context refers narrowly to the attributes of the core product (here, the physician‘s medical competence); interpersonal and organizational quality are associated with value, satisfaction and loyalty, rather than overall quality. Two paths to quality evaluations appear to exist. In the first, consumers integrate evidence of the physician‘s capabilities, practices, and prior outcomes to reach evaluations of technical quality. In the second path, consumers rely on a trust heuristic in which observed interpersonal and organizational quality signals are used to build trust in the physician; that trust, in turn, influences perceptions of technical quality. The trust heuristic appears to be used when the stakes are low and, counterintuitively, when the stakes are high, just when superior evaluations are most needed.

Recently, organization downsizing has become the major means used by corporations to seek survival or better growth. Organization downsizing has some purposes: to reduce the cost of personal, to get better efficiency, to rearrange the deployment of human resource after M&A. Besides those economic purposes, some scholar think corporations do organization downsizing to get legitimacy. Generally speaking, the purpose of organization downsizing is to get better efficiency or the legitimacy. But lots of researches indicate lots of organization downsizing can not achieve expected goals. Although some corporations can achieve the goal of organization downsizing, many corporations can¡¦t achieve expected goals, and there are also some corporations do a lot of organization downsizing but their situations go from bed to worse. Among the researches of why organization downsizing can¡¦t achieve expected goals, many researches indicate that the application of organization downsizing will make huge negative impact to survivors. Some scholars call that impact survivor syndrome. Besides, some scholars investigate the reason of the failure of organization downsizing from the point of informal social network. Because the theory of social capital includes trust, organization involvement, social network and so on, we can more understand the reason of the failure of organization downsizing from the point of social capital. So the purpose of this research is to use the theory of social capital to investigate the impact of organization downsizing and provide some advices to corporations, so that they can do better about organization downsizing. This research uses case study to understand the reason and the process of organization downsizing, and investigates the negative impact of organization downsizing. Survivor syndrome and social capital play important roles in the analysis of the failure of organization downsizing. This research finds that organization downsizing will do huge damage to social capital. If corporation don¡¦t understand the importance and benefit of social network, then the application of organization downsizing will hurt social network and corporations can¡¦t achieve expected goals. Besides, in the analysis of case study this research finds that organization downsizing also hurt trust, involvement, incentives to cooperation and so on, these issues are part of survivor syndrome, but we also can use social capital to explain.