This study is an empirical case study of the Swedish space- and automation company Unibap AB about how to build trust in the space industry. The space industry is distinctive in the way that space missions are at high stakes because of the high costs and the fact that the technology can not be modified after launch. Reliability and trust are therefore crucial factors of doing business in the space industry. Also, AI-based satellite solutions can bring huge benefits but 60% of the resistance from companies to running AI is linked to lack of trust. The concept of trust has been discussed before in the industrial marketing literature and differentiates between social sources and offer-related sources of trust. However, there appears to be an empirical as well as a theoretical gap when it comes to building trust in the space industry. Because the topic is unexplored, an exploratory methodology is used when interviewing 12 actors in the space- and high-tech industry worldwide. Since one important aspect of offer-related trust seems to be usability, this study also includes a usability evaluation of Unibap's space computer solution SpaceCloud which enables on-board AI applications. Key antecedents of trust in the space industry were found to be transparency, competence, reliability of technology, and exact delivery times. It appears that social- and offer-related trust significantly influence partnerships between companies and that offer-related trust is the most important type of trust to win contracts of tax-funded agencies. Strengths and improvements of the usability of SpaceCloud are also identified, and it is concluded that SpaceCloud has the potential to offer a new way of building satellite applications in the future.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-447558 |
| Date | January 2021 |
| Creators | Nittler, Josefine, Ahlsén, Mattias |
| Publisher | Uppsala universitet, Industriell teknik, Uppsala universitet, Institutet för rymdfysik, Uppsalaavdelningen |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
| Relation | UPTEC F, 1401-5757 ; 21045, UPTEC IT, 1401-5749 ; 21023 |
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