Trust In Context Research Articles

Comparing Sino-Nordic systems of higher education: ideology, institutional logics, subaltern governance, and emergent identities

ABSTRACT China is a key player in global science. Collaboration between Chinese and Western universities is critical for enhancing global networks of research and innovation. However, the potential for cooperative outcomes is currently limited by obstacles to collaboration. At the core of these challenges is the continued misunderstanding of ideology and governance between Chinese and Western higher education. Contributing to increased sub-regional understanding of higher education systems, this research provides an important Sino-Nordic comparative understanding of institutional autonomy, academic freedom, professional academic identity and organizational change. Through an empirical case-study and document analysis of macro-social ideopolitical steering logics, institutional logics, and organizational-level complexity, this research finds that within both China and the Nordics, incongruent macrosocial ideo-political steering logics deprofessionalize/politicize the academic profession through a state-driven procedural strengthening, yet substantive narrowing/weakening of institutional autonomy/academic freedom. The implications of this research should be understood within a contemporary context of limited trust and cooperation between China and the Nordics. Through a bridging view of convergent/divergent ideopolitical steering logics within respective systemic higher education contexts, and their effects on professional academic identity and agentic change, increased understanding of respective HE systems may provide avenue for increased sub-regional academic/scientific engagement and cooperation.

Boardroom dynamics: the impact of board gender diversity on discretionary dividend policy in US REITs

Purpose This study aims to address a notable gap in the existing literature by exploring the relationship between gender diversity and dividend policy within the context of US Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs). Design/methodology/approach The authors use a substantial data set comprising 1,398 firm-year observations across 209 US REIT companies from 2011 to 2021 to address the research aims. Fixed effects models and generalized least squares regression methods are used in the analysis. Findings The results demonstrate a significant positive association between board gender diversity and higher dividend payouts among US REITs. This relationship holds after controlling for corporate governance and other firm-level factors. The findings have strong implications that the presence of women on REIT boards contributes to a greater propensity for discretionary dividend increases in the USA. Originality/value This research contributes to the literature by empirically examining female directors’ role in influencing US REITs’ dividend policies, an area lacking adequate prior scholarship. The paper also considers the unique regulatory environment of REITs, highlighting the importance of the study for externally financed firms.

Resilience or decline of informal networks? Examining the role of trust context in network societies

The nature of informal networks in various societies, and particularly whether they recede or tend to persist over time, has long been a subject of discussion in international business studies. However, empirical research on trust in network-oriented societies, where individuals typically maintain somewhat different relationships with their in-group, out-group, and non-specified others, remains limited. Drawing on insights from informal network research and intergroup contact theory to model trust relationships in network societies, 882 respondents from three network societies -- China, Russia, and South Korea -- were surveyed, and confirmatory factor and path analyses applied. The results suggest that as network importance increases, both in-group trust and out-group trust also increase. Individuals who more commonly draw upon out-group trust ties attach less importance to in-group trust ties. Increases in non-specific trust, however, are associated with increases in both in-group and out-group trust, pointing towards the boundary spanning function of non-specific trust. Consequently, rather than finding a clear indication of whether informal networks persist or recede, ambivalent trust relationships were observed. This calls for a reexamination of the conventional ‘either/or’ perspective on the nature of informal networks. This network heterogeneity can be attributed to individuals, especially in developing network societies, utilizing a ‘both/and’ approach to trust and networking, and yielding more economic opportunities.

The Effect of Brand Heritage on Intention to Donate in Non-Profit Organizations: An Evaluation within the Context of Temporal Focus and Brand Trust

ABSTRACT This study investigates intention to donate to nonprofit organizations with the perspective of brand heritage, brand trust, and the temporal focus of donors. The study is conducted on the long-established Turkish nonprofit organization Kızılay. Data is gathered via an online survey (n = 473) with judgmental sampling. The findings indicate that the brand heritage of a nonprofit organization affects brand trust and intention to donate. Likewise, trust in a nonprofit organization positively influences donation intention. Brand trust partially mediates the relationship between brand heritage and intention to donate. While individuals’ temporal focuses on the past and future moderate the relationship between brand heritage and brand trust, as expected, the present focus does not. The findings are expected to contribute to the branding processes and donation encouraging activities of nonprofit organizations.

Localizing the Public Trust

The public trust doctrine is the manifestation of a simple principle: certain natural resources are too important to entrust to private par-ties. Instead, those natural resources are held by the government in trust for the public. When we think of the contemporary public trust doctrine, we usually think of the doctrine as a state-level phenomenon. After all, the State is the sovereign entrusted with ownership of the public trust.
 But the doctrine also includes local governments, which play im-portant and substantive, if under-appreciated, roles. Missing from the conversation, however, is how local governments should be incorpo-rated into the doctrine. Should local governments be permitted auton-omy as co-trustees of the public trust? Do we trust local governments to safeguard public trust assets?
 This Article develops a framework for the normative relationship be-tween state and local governments in the public trust context. Doing so formally recognizes the role of local governments, thus localizing a doctrine that exists almost exclusively at the state level. This Article begins by reframing the doctrine as part of the lived experience of the public rather than merely a tool of the judiciary. Next, this Article cat-alogs the benefits of localizing the public trust doctrine, including the impacts local actors already have on the doctrine, localism’s tradition-al benefits, environmental justice, and environmental federalism.
 This Article then proposes localizing the public trust doctrine through three principles: (1) minimum state requirements; (2) increased local autonomy; and (3) shared responsibilities between local and state governments. This framework mirrors cooperative federal-ism and shares its advantages. Finally, the Article looks at local cli-mate adaptation as a case study of how states and local governments can begin localizing the public trust doctrine.

Grey relational analysis-driven optimization of neutrosophic MAGDM for cloud SaaS credibility evaluation

In the basic cloud service delivery model, since SaaS (Software as a Service) is located at the application layer, if a relatively complete cloud service credibility comprehensive evaluation framework can be established from the perspective of SaaS cloud service consumers and combined with their trust context, it can not only effectively solve the trust problem between cloud service consumers (CSC) and cloud service provider (CSP), but also has very important practical significance for the popularization and promotion of SaaS service applications. The credibility evaluation of SaaS services in cloud computing environment is often considered as a multi-attribute group decision making (MAGDM) problem. In this paper, the grey relational analysis (GRA) method is extended to the single-valued neutrosophic sets (SVNSs) setting to deal with MAGDM with incomplete weight information. First, the SVNSs are reviewed. In addition, the single-valued neutrosophic number GRA (SVNN-GRA) is established for MAGDM with incomplete weight information, and the computational steps for all designs are listed. Finally, the credibility evaluation of SaaS services in cloud computing environment is given to demonstrate the SVNN-GRA model and some comparative analysis is done to demonstrate the SVNN-GRA.

Supporting Solidarity

Supporting Solidarity

Measuring Latent Trust Patterns in Large Language Models in the Context of Human-AI Teaming

Qualitative self-report methods such as think-aloud procedures and open-ended response questions can provide valuable data to human factors research. These measures come with analytic weaknesses, such as researcher bias, intra- and inter-rater reliability concerns, and time-consuming coding protocols. A possible solution exists in the latent semantic patterns that exist in machine learning large language models. These semantic patterns could be used to analyze qualitative responses. This exploratory research compared the statistical quality of automated sentence coding using large language models to the benchmarks of self-report and behavioral measures within the context of trust in automation research. The results indicated that three large language models show promise as tools for analyzing qualitative responses. The study also provides insight on minimum sample sizes for model creation and offers recommendations for further validating the robustness of large language models as research tools.

Context of Trust in Physicians in Singapore: The Roles of Professional Intimacy, Physician Sexual Orientation, and Patient Sex

Context of Trust in Physicians in Singapore: The Roles of Professional Intimacy, Physician Sexual Orientation, and Patient Sex

Early childhood education decision-making among Latinx foreign-born parents in the United States: A culturally-informed model of decision-making

This study aims to better understand the decision-making process for Latinx foreign-born parents choosing early childhood education settings for their children ages 3 to 5. Using a transformative mixed methods design, this study develops a culturally-based model of decision-making for these families. Grounded theory was used to analyze group interviews with twenty-two Latinx immigrant parents across four communities to produce an ecologically valid model of ECE decision-making. The overall integrity of the resulting model was tested by estimating multinomial logistic regression analyses of education utilization among Latinx immigrant families (N = 744) with 3 to 5-year old children from the 2012 National Survey of Early Care and Education. Findings were congruent across phases and show that relationships between parental beliefs and socialization goals, social context, and indicators of trust facilitate the creation of care preferences for preschool age children which are moderated by maternal employment status and developmental expectations. For example, among employed parents, higher ratings of care assets for center care over parent care predicted a greater likelihood of selecting center versus parent care. These findings provide novel insights into the role of cultural socialization goals in parents’ search for early childhood education and suggest greater attention should be paid by scholars and providers to the cultural contexts in which families make their decisions.

Success Factors Influencing Peer-to-Peer Lending to Support Financial Innovation

The purpose of this study is to identify success factors that are conducive to developing the ability to create financial innovation within developing countries for the sake of sustainability. The purpose of this research is to contribute to the identification of success factors. The case study involves a peer-to-peer lending (P2P Lending) business operator in Thailand and focuses on the lender perspective. The results consist of 13 potential factors driving financial innovation in process improvement. The study collected data from 300 respondents through a structured questionnaire. The structural equation model was used to analyze the data via Mplus version 7. In order to gain a better understanding, we emphasize that each country’s financial business may show different success factors due to different situations and environments, which might pose a challenge when drawing conclusions from the survey and building sustainability in the financial industry. The research summarizes the factors of success in 3 contexts with 13 factors; namely, the risk context consists of a higher interest rate, inflation increase, macroeconomics, regulation laws, and legal, liquidity, and finance and credit status. The trust context includes demographic characteristics, biological characteristics, and an individual’s reputational capital, and the lender perspective information context includes loan delinquencies, funded loans, politics, and culture. According to our results, the investor or lender will benefit from bringing concepts and methods that involve adopting international loans.

SIMULATION MODEL OF MULTI-CHANNEL INTERSECTORAL TRANSFER OF BEHAVIOURAL ATTRACTORS FOR MACROECONOMIC STABILITY OF THE COUNTRY

Purpose. The purpose of the research is to develop a cognitive model of the behaviour of the social and economic system, which explains the causal mechanism between the development of the financial and public sectors using the concept of trust. Methodology of research. The research utilized general scientific methods, including dialectical analysis and synthesis, to determine the main variables of the model. The fuzzy Delphi method was employed to transform linguistic variables and determine the weight of each variable. FCM analysis facilitated the translation of the complex model's graphical representation into a mathematical form of the adjacency matrix, enabling algebraic calculations to identify various structural characteristics of the built model of multi-channel intersectoral transfer of behavioural attractors for macroeconomic stability of the country in the Mental Modeler software. Findings. The study identified 21st concepts related to the functioning of the financial and public sectors of the economy, enabling the construction of a cognitive map illustrating the cause-and-effect relationships between financial and public sectors within the context of trust among social and economic and behavioural variables. The research found that government policies, central bank policies, and exchange rate stability have the greatest impact on macroeconomic stability. On the other hand, concepts such as financial literacy, positive previous experience, saving time spent on service provision, and service failure are easily manageable but do not have a significant impact on macroeconomic stability. Trust in the financial sector and the government were proven to be key variables in ensuring macroeconomic stability, but also extremely difficult to manage. Originality. The study proposes a simulation model of the multi-channel intersectoral transfer of behavioural attractors for the macroeconomic stability of a country, considering the simultaneous influence of trust in the government and trust in the financial sector. Practical value. Weighty concepts based on research results can be useful for domestic scenarios of ensuring financial and macroeconomic stability in the country. Also, the results are of scientific value for further research and exploration. Key words: trust in the financial sector, trust in the government, macroeconomic stability, financial stability, simulation modelling, Delphi method, Mental Modeler

The mediating role of perceived risks and benefits when self-disclosing: A study of social media trust and FoMO

Self-disclosure as influenced by perceived risks and benefits plays an important role within the context of social media use and the associated privacy risk. Some social media platforms, like Facebook (now part of Meta Platforms Inc.), provide users with elaborate means to control privacy risk. Conversely, Instagram (also part of Meta) provides users with fewer such mechanisms as a function of self-disclosure. Therefore, self-disclosure as a product of risk and benefit assessment may differ considerably as a function of the technological affordances that control such disclosure. This is particularly the case considering that such a benefit and risk assessment is further influenced by a user's trust in that provider, not to mention their proclivity for disclosing without any rational risk and benefit assessments, as is the case when disclosing as a function of fear of missing out (FoMO). Given the influence that provider trust and FoMO might have when assessing risks and benefits, this study evaluated the extent to which perceived risks and benefits mediate self-disclosure on Facebook and Instagram, in particular within the context of provider trust and FoMO. Based on an adapted version of privacy calculus, we evaluated our research model by analyzing 720 survey responses using partial least squares path modeling. Our results indicate that perceived benefits mediate the relationship between FoMO and intention to self-disclose when using Instagram, but not when using Facebook. Additionally, we found perceived benefits and perceived risks to mediate the relationship between trust in provider and intention to self-disclose for Facebook and Instagram. Surprisingly, we found no evidence to suggest that the relationship between FoMO and intention to self-disclose is mediated by perceived risks when using Facebook, with the converse being true when using Instagram. We conclude that the transitory (ephemeral) nature of some methods of self-disclosure on Instagram are used as a means to mitigate privacy risks.

Electronic trust-building for hotel websites: a social exchange theory perspective

PurposeThis study aims to contribute to the context of electronic trust (e-trust) research with an emphasis on the determination of tourists’ e-trust in hotel websites. This research used social exchange theory to elaborate how perceived attributes of a hotel website influence purchase behaviour of tourists. This area is often neglected because most studies focus on website users’ adoption or acceptance of other service industries. It is expected that trust-generating mechanisms have different impacts on the e-trust level in the hospitality services.Design/methodology/approachA comprehensive literature review identified the major antecedents and outcomes of e-trust. Data was collected from an online survey and 586 usable questionnaires were achieved. Structural equation modelling was used to examine the hypothesized model.FindingsThe results of this study demonstrated that the more tourists perceive influences positively, the more they are possibly to trust in hotel website. Findings revealed that perceptions about the attributes of hotel website, including security, privacy, usefulness, ease of use and compatibility are the main antecedents of trust in hotel website, which, in turn, lead to actual usage of the website for booking online.Originality/valueThis study is based on a large sample of tourists and broadens the understanding of e-trust in hotel websites by considering factors rarely discussed in prior tourism and hospitality literature.

Inoculation works and health advocacy backfires: Building resistance to COVID-19 vaccine misinformation in a low political trust context.

This study examines the effectiveness of the inoculation strategy in countering vaccine-related misinformation among Hong Kong college students. A three-phase between-subject experiment (n = 123) was conducted to compare the persuasive effects of inoculation messages (two-sided messages forewarning about misinformation related to COVID-19 vaccines), supportive messages (conventional health advocacy), and no message control. The results show that inoculation messages were superior to supportive messages at generating resistance to misinformation, as evidenced by more positive vaccine attitudes and stronger vaccine intention. Notably, while we expected the inoculation condition would produce more resistance than the control condition, there was little evidence in favor of this prediction. Attitudinal threat and counterarguing moderated the experimental effects; issue involvement and political trust were found to directly predict vaccine attitudes and intention. The findings suggest that future interventions focus on developing preventive mechanisms to counter misinformation and spreading inoculation over the issue is an effective strategy to generate resistance to misinformation. Interventions should be cautious about using health advocacy initiated by governments among populations with low political trust.

DUEL: Dempster Uncertainty-Based Enhanced- Trust Level Scheme for VANET

This work presents an uncertainty-based Trust Model (TM). It uses Dempster Shafer Theory (DST) to cater to uncertainty arising due to information scarcity in Vehicular Adhoc Networks (VANETs). DST combines direct and indirect trust values of vehicles sending messages to build its new trust opinion. Malicious vehicles, albeit authenticated, may alter or drop messages. The solution is to establish trust. Trust establishment assumes that vehicle behaviour is predictable, and its past transactions are useful for anticipating its future response. The high vehicular mobility, dynamic topology, and low neighbourhood density in VANETs cause a lack of credible information for establishing trust. The work also presents the introduction of the penalty function, forgetting function, rewarding factor, and the uncertainty-based importance factor during the combination of direct and indirect trust values using DST. Apart from this, the forgiving factor deals with a situation when a distrusted vehicle starts behaving ideally. Additionally, we present trust contexts based on types of messages altered or dropped by them. Four different trust levels and uncertainty in DUEL aids the receiver make correct decisions during an attack. DUEL is applied and tested on the real-time data of vehicle trajectory. Results show that DUEL can capture both false message attacks and message suppression attacks even in rapidly changing neighbourhoods and performs well in terms of high values of TPR and low values of FPR.

Using Comparative Network Analysis to Explore Trust Relationships in Network Societies

Though deviations in the nature of trust have been recognized and regarded influential for conducting international business activities successfully, empirical research into the trust context of network societies remains scarce today. We suggest a theory that reflects the multiplicity and peculiarity of trust and its relational and environmental context. By surveying 882 respondents from three countries (China, Russia, and South Korea) data suggests that with increased network importance, in-group trust increases alike. Moreover, individuals drawing predominantly on out-group trust attach less importance to in-group trust. With increases in nonspecific trust, both in-group and out-group trust increases. Hence, we find a multiplicity of trust relationships that call for a reexamination of the conventional bipolar view on trust relationships.

Socioeconomic stratification and trajectories of social trust during COVID-19

Extant theory suggests that crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic may change people's trust in others. A crisis-to-solidarity model suggests that people become more trusting, while a crisis-to-negative experience theory suggests that people lose trust, and a stability perspective predicts that social trust will largely remain unchanged. We argue that, when a crisis occurs, trust is likely to fall into distinct trajectories of change that will conform to these different perspectives, and placement into contrasting trajectories of change will be predicated on socioeconomic position. To test our argument, we use data from multiple waves of Canadian national surveys conducted from September 2019 to February 2021 and examine how two major forms of social trust—generalized trust and neighborhood trust—changed during the COVID-19 pandemic. A longitudinal latent class analysis (LLCA) shows increasing, decreasing, and stable trajectories of trust, which conform to each of the proposed patterns. We further show that individuals' baseline socioeconomic position is a strong indicator of the placement in these trajectories. Both forms of trust increased among individuals with higher socioeconomic positions while decreased among individuals with lower socioeconomic positions. This research contributes to the literature on the social context of trust by reconciling contrasting views of the consequences of crises for trust, and also in showing that the segmentation of changes in trust are proscribed by structures of social stratification.

"I Think You Are Trustworthy, Need I Say More?" The Factor Structure and Practicalities of Trustworthiness Assessment.

Two popular models of trustworthiness have garnered support over the years. One has postulated three aspects of trustworthiness as state-based antecedents to trust. Another has been interpreted to comprise two aspects of trustworthiness. Empirical data shows support for both models, and debate remains as to the theoretical and practical reasons researchers may adopt one model over the other. The present research aimed to consider this debate by investigating the factor structure of trustworthiness. Taking items from two scales commonly employed to assess trustworthiness, we leveraged structural equation modeling to explore which theoretical model is supported by the data in an organizational trust context. We considered an array of first-order, second-order, and bifactor models. The best-fitting model was a bifactor model comprising one general trustworthiness factor and ability, benevolence, and integrity grouping factors. This model was determined to be essentially unidimensional, though this is qualified by the finding that the grouping variables accounted for significant variance with for several organizational outcome criteria. These results suggest that respondents typically employ a general factor when responding to items assessing trustworthiness, and researchers may be better served treating the construct as unidimensional or engaging in scale parceling of their models to reflect this response tendency more accurately. However, the substantial variance accounted by the grouping variables in hierarchical regression suggest there may be contexts in which it would be acceptable to consider the theoretical factors of ability, benevolence, and integrity independent of general trustworthiness.

Exemption clauses in the modern age: do they result in an “institution in crisis”?

Exemption clauses are a common feature of modern trusts. These seek to exempt trustees from liability for breach of trust, or to indemnify them from the trust assets for personal liability for breach. Contract law has long featured a rule that exemption clauses cannot protect a person from liability arising from the person’s own fraud.2 It cannot safely be assumed that rules of contract will be applied to trusts and, if they are, how they might be adapted to the different trust context. The rule in contract is that a person’s own fraud cannot be excluded. Fraud is capable of different meanings in different contexts. Equity has long treated conduct falling short of actual fraud to be constructive fraud.3 There was uncertainty as to whether this special meaning would apply to trust exemption clauses. If fraud has the same meaning as in a contractual setting, then exemption...