Organizational Trustworthiness Research Articles

TAKING IT TO THE STREET: A CONCEPTUAL MODEL PROMOTING THE ESSENTIALITY OF TRUST IN COMMUNITY-FOCUSED QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

Introduction/Frame: Trust is foundational to qualitative research and program evaluation to ensure that data collection, data analysis, and actionable recommendations improve programs and produce effective outcomes. Concomitantly, building trust between the university and community sectors offers a rich opportunity to join efforts to address public health issues including substance use, homelessness, criminal justice involvement, and mental illness. Research suggests cross-sector collaboration among human services organizations produces effective outcomes when stakeholders are engaged, trust one another, and have shared goals. Developing qualitative program evaluation partnerships between university researchers and human service organizations offers a valuable application of cross-sector collaboration, including the transferability of qualitative research and program evaluation findings. Objective: This conceptual paper aims to highlight the essentiality of trust, summarize the facilitators and barriers of collaboration, and share a case example of a partnership. Additionally, it offers implications for researchers and community partners while outlining the benefits of university/community collaboration. Finally, we will offer a conceptual model of the iterative relationship between trustworthiness, trust, and impact in our evaluation approach. Theoretical Framework: Our approach to community-focused qualitative program evaluation is anchored in an action research paradigm, a use evaluation approach, coupled with trust as the key factor in developing and maintaining effective evaluative relationships. The Impact of Trust: Three areas in which trust is most beneficial to qualitative program evaluation are relationships, data collection, and transferability of results. Conceptual Model: Our model is grounded in three seminal works focusing on trust in business-business relationships, organizational trustworthiness as a mediator to both cognitive and affective trust, and relationship stability in inter-organizational reliance. Final Considerations: We found that using this model allowed quicker research-to-practice implementation of evaluation recommendations, solidified community/university collaborative relationships, and facilitated strategies to address workforce shortages in community human services agencies.

Trustworthiness of Policymakers, Technology Developers, and Media Organizations Involved in Introducing AI for Autonomous Vehicles: A Public Perspective

Qualities of organizations constitute dimensions of trustworthiness. Guided by the integrative model of organizational trust, we developed dimensions of trustworthiness of policymakers, technology developers, and media organizations that are involved in introducing artificial intelligence for autonomous vehicles. We collected data through six focus group discussions with the public in Singapore. In addition to the core dimensions of trustworthiness, the public would consider acclaim, collaboration, public communication, and affiliation. Further, we identified all the dimensions of trustworthiness as either ability-, recognition-, relation-, or principle-based. These findings carry important implications for the development of the model and stakeholders’ communication about science and technology.

Identity in the Digital Age: An Investigation of Malaysian Perspectives on Technology and Privacy

Malaysia is in the process of developing a new identity system to provide citizens and residents with secure and efficient access to digital services. This study aimed to determine the responsiveness of the Malaysian population to new technologies and evaluate their opinions on managing their identity online. The study employed a quantitative research design and collected data through an online questionnaire. A total of 1,014 participants from Malaysia, aged 18 years and above, were included in the study, and the data were analysed using cross-tabulation analysis. The theoretical framework of the study was based on the technology acceptance model, the risk and negative consequences theory of individuals' perceptions, and the organizational trustworthiness theory. The results showed that various demographic characteristics influence individuals' attitudes towards technology adoption and online identity management. Gender, age, ethnicity/race, work status, employment sector, level of education, place of living, household income level, and residence state were all significantly associated with early adoption of emerging technologies, trying out new technologies, and enjoyment of trying out new technologies. Certain demographic factors may also have an impact on people's preferences for specific identity management tools. The study also found significant relationships between various demographic factors and trust levels when it comes to personal data. The study findings have implications for policymakers and practitioners involved in promoting the adoption of new technologies and the management of online identities. The study's findings may assist policymakers in implementing better measures for protecting Malaysians' online identity and privacy. Additionally, the results could also inform future research investigating technology adoption and acceptance among Malaysians.

Exploring Factors Influencing Trust in Banks: A Multifaceted Analysis

The intricate dynamics of trust formation within financial institutions, particularly in the banking sector, are explored in this research, combined with an exploration of the influence of attitudes and sociodemographic factors. Employing an ordered-logistic regression model on a different sample, we scrutinized the nexus between individuals' trust in banks and various factors such as age, educational attainment, technological proficiency, religious affiliations, marital status, income level, and family size. Our findings reveal several significant correlations: technological proficiency, age, and education all boost individuals' confidence in banks, whereas religious beliefs exhibit a negative relationship. Conversely, we have noted that the total number of children in a family, income level, and marital status exert adverse effects on trust in banking institutions. These discoveries underscore the complex interplay between personal attributes and attitudes in shaping perceptions of the trustworthiness of financial organizations. Policymakers and banking professionals must comprehend these dynamics to foster trust and stability within the banking sector.

Ambiguity in advertised compensation: Recruiting implications of nominal compliance with pay transparency legislation.

Pursuant to legislative mandates the proportion of job postings that include wage and salary information has rapidly increased. However, many organizations comply by advertising very broad salary ranges. Here, we examine how the width of a pay range influences prospective applicants' perceptions. Although in other contexts people often exhibit a preference for vaguely specified gains, we draw from decision and signaling theories to hypothesize negative reactions to highly ambiguous pay ranges and test them in three preregistered experiments. In Study 1, business students evaluate a job posting with the width of the salary range manipulated between subjects. Study 2 tests for moderating effects of ambiguity explanations using a within-subjects manipulation of pay range width counterbalanced across two job postings and a sample of college graduates with relevant work experience. In Study 3, a diverse sample of recent job seekers predict a salary offer for a hiring vignette in which both the extent of ambiguity in the advertised pay range and the chosen candidate's qualifications are manipulated; their qualitative impressions of the organization are also analyzed. Results provide converging evidence for modal aversion to high ambiguity resulting from negative effects on perceived organizational trustworthiness and skewed predictions of salary offers. Practical implications of this aspect of pay transparency are discussed, as well as broader theoretical implications for understanding outcome ambiguity effects in domains where decision makers vary in their beliefs about underlying reasons for vagueness in communicated information. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Consumer acceptance of cultured meat: an empirical analysis of the role of organizational factors

Cultured meat, i.e. meat produced in-vitro through the cultivation of animal stem cells, is a radical innovation that prepares to enter the market in the near future. It has the potential to substantially reduce the negative externalities of today’s meat production and consumption and pave the way for a more sustainable global food system. However, this potential can only be realized if cultured meat penetrates the mass-market, which renders consumer acceptance a critical bottleneck. Using structural equation modeling, the present paper investigates the role of hitherto neglected organizational factors (trustworthiness, corporate social responsibility (CSR), and extrinsic motives) as antecedents of consumer acceptance of cultured meat. To this end, a pre-post intervention design in terms of a two-part online questionnaire was used with the final sample consisting of 966 participants. We found that in addition to established antecedents on the product level, organizational trustworthiness and CSR have a significant influence on consumers’ willingness to buy cultured meat. The findings indicate that organizational factors matter for consumer acceptance of cultured meat.

Examining social class as it relates to heuristics women use to determine the trustworthiness of information regarding the link between alcohol and breast cancer risk

BackgroundHigh rates of alcohol consumption by midlife women, despite the documented risks associated with breast cancer, varies according to social class. However, we know little about how to develop equitable messaging regarding breast cancer prevention that takes into consideration class differences in the receipt and use of such information.ObjectiveTo explore the heuristics used by women with different (inequitable) life chances to determine the trustworthiness of information regarding alcohol as a modifiable risk factor for breast cancer risk.Methods and materialsInterviews were conducted with 50 midlife (aged 45–64) women living in South Australia, diversified by self-reported alcohol consumption and social class. Women were asked to describe where they sought health information, how they accessed information specific to breast cancer risk as it relates to alcohol, and how they determined whether (or not) such information was trustworthy. De-identified transcripts were analysed following a three-step progressive method with the aim of identifying how women of varying life chances determine the trustworthiness of alcohol and breast cancer risk information. Three heuristics were used by women: (1) consideration of whose interests are being served; (2) engagement with ‘common sense’; and (3) evaluating the credibility of the message and messenger. Embedded within each heuristic are notable class-based distinctions.ConclusionsMore equitable provision of cancer prevention messaging might consider how social class shapes the reception and acceptance of risk information. Class should be considered in the development and tailoring of messages as the trustworthiness of organizations behind public health messaging cannot be assumed.

The Hidden Cost of Trustworthiness

The theory of the nonprofit institutional form developed by Henry Hansmann emphasizes the importance of organizational trustworthiness in a sector defined by hard-to-measure outputs. This body of theory effectually rationalizes a normative approach to nonprofit financial management focused on maintaining organizational trustworthiness through fiscal probity signaling. Such signals include measurable indicators of overhead minimization, fiscal leanness, revenue diversification, and debt avoidance, among others. Appropriate signaling behavior may increase organizational trustworthiness as intended, but the effects on mission impact are not well understood. Thus, this article assesses how adherence to common fiscal probity norms affects mission impact, using total spending as a proxy. Based on a panel of donative public charities spanning 1982 to 2019, analysis suggests that norm-adhering nonprofits sacrifice about half of their mission impact over a 10-year period compared with norm-busting nonprofits. This forgone mission impact is the hidden cost of trustworthiness.

Measuring the Trustworthiness of Health Care Organizations and Systems.

Policy Points Current efforts to measure and improve trust in health care focus on changing patients' attitudes rather than measuring and improving the trustworthiness of health care organizations and systems. We present a conceptual model to understand and explain the constructs of trust and trustworthiness in the context of health care through the application of existing theories of human behavior. Developing and publicly reporting measures that can enable patients, particularly from historically marginalized groups, to better assess the trustworthiness of providers is necessary to promote health care equity.

The Role of Trustworthiness Facets for Developing Social Media Applications: A Structured Literature Review

This work reviews existing research about attributes, which are assessed by individuals to evaluate the trustworthiness of (i) software applications, (ii) organizations (e.g., service providers), and (iii) other individuals. As these parties are part of social media services, previous research has identified the need for users to assess their trustworthiness. Based on the trustworthiness assessment, users decide whether they want to interact with them and whether such interactions appear safe. The literature review encompasses 264 works from which so-called trustworthiness facets of 100 papers could be identified. In addition to an overview of trustworthiness facets, this work further introduces a guideline for software engineers on how to select appropriate trustworthiness facets during the analysis of the problem space for the development of specific social media applications. It is exemplified by the problem of “catfishing” in online dating.

COVID-19 pandemic: preferences and barriers for dissemination of evidence syntheses : Survey of intensive care personnel in Germany

HintergrundDas COVID-19-Evidenz-Ökosystem (CEOsys) identifiziert, bewertet und fasst Ergebnisse wissenschaftlicher Studien in Evidenzsynthesen im Kontext von COVID-19 zusammen. Diese Evidenzsynthesen werden genutzt, um konkrete Handlungsempfehlungen abzuleiten und Leitlinien zu erstellen.ZielsetzungVorbereitung der am besten geeigneten Verteilung von Evidenzsynthesen im Rahmen der Aufgaben des CEOsys-Projekts.MethodeFür Deutschland wurde eine Befragung hinsichtlich des intensivmedizinischen Personals priorisierter Themenbereiche, Wünschen zu Layout, Plattform der Bekanntmachung von Evidenzsynthesen und Vertrauenswürdigkeit von Institutionen mit kategorialen Antwortmöglichkeiten durchgeführt. Die Umfrage erfolgte online und wurde per E‑Mail lokal und über die DIVI verteilt.ErgebnisseVon 317 Befragten, die die Umfrage starteten, vervollständigten 200 den Fragebogen. Knappe Zeit und fehlender Zugriff, unzureichende Erfahrung bzw. Unsicherheit im Umgang mit Evidenzsynthesen wurden als Barriere für Wissenserwerb benannt. Das aktive Herantragen von Informationen wird bevorzugt („Push-Strategie“). Als Format werden Kurzversion, Übersichten mit Algorithmen und Webinare prioritär gewünscht. Webseiten öffentlicher Einrichtungen, Fachjournalartikel und E‑Mail-Newsletter sollen auf neue Evidenz aufmerksam machen. Fachgesellschaften und dem Robert Koch Institut werden in der Pandemie mehrheitlich Vertrauen geschenkt. Priorisierte Themen der Befragten sind Langzeitfolgen der Erkrankung, Schutz des medizinischen Personals und Invasivität der Beatmungstherapie.SchlussfolgerungEvidenzsynthesen sollten aktiv an Zielgruppen herangetragen werden. Inhalte sollten übersichtlich, kurz (Algorithmen, Kurzversion, Webinare) und frei verfügbar sein. Webseiten, E‑Mail-Newsletter und medizinische Journale, aber auch Fachgesellschaften und das Robert Koch-Institut sollten auf Evidenzsynthesen hinweisen.Zusatzmaterial onlineZusätzliche Informationen sind in der Online-Version dieses Artikels (10.1007/s00101-021-01037-z) enthalten.

Digital Repository Legacies: A Case Study in Assessing Organizational Trustworthiness

Academic libraries rarely discuss cases of digital repositories that do not meet the standards expected of trusted digital repositories. Implications from inconsistent adherence to technical and professional criteria often surface during migration projects. In 2020, Stony Brook University Libraries began migrating assets to a mono-repository environment. Persistent historical factors presented challenges to repository trustworthiness. This case study discusses a survey project to evaluate legacy repository statuses in the contexts of infrastructure, documentation, and staff capacity. It considers a paradigm of organizational accountability in digital asset stewardship and offers insights for reconciling inherited legacies with aspirations to be a trusted repository.

‘To Trust or Not’: Impact of camouflage strategies on trust in the sharing economy

Sharing economy businesses consider trust as core to their success. However, numerous reports indicate that these organizations are susceptible to malpractices and may adopt alternate deviant strategies such as camouflage. Based on the theoretical perspectives of interpersonal deception theory, stakeholder principle, and transparency theory, this study proposes and validates 'neutralize’ as a new type of camouflage strategy. We compare neutralize strategy with concealment, an adjacent camouflage strategy type, and study their respective impacts on organizational trustworthiness and trust. Our findings indicate that neutralize strategy offers a significant short-term upside potential along with a lower downside when detected. This result contrasts with concealment strategy, which brings no appreciable gain but carries significant downside risk if detected. From a trust perspective, this makes neutralize a dominant strategic choice for organizations. This research makes salient contributions by integrating three distinct literature streams related to organization response strategies, trust dynamics, and the sharing economy.

A first look into users’ perceptions of facial recognition in the physical world

Facial recognition (FR) technology is being adopted in both private and public spheres for a wide range of reasons, from ensuring physical safety to providing personalized shopping experiences. It is not clear yet, though, how users perceive this emerging technology in terms of usefulness, risks, and comfort. We begin to address these questions in this paper. In particular, we conducted a vignette-based study with 314 participants on Amazon Mechanical Turk to investigate their perceptions of facial recognition in the physical world, based on thirty-five scenarios across eight different contexts of FR use. We found that users do not have a binary answer towards FR adoption. Rather, their perceptions are grounded in the specific contexts in which FR will be applied. The participants considered a broad range of factors, including control over facial data, the utility of FR, the trustworthiness of organizations using FR, and the location and surroundings of FR use to place the corresponding privacy risks in context. They weighed the privacy risks with the usability, security, and economic gain of FR use as they reported their perceptions. Participants also noted the reasons and rationals behind their perceptions of facial recognition, which let us conduct an in-depth analysis of their perceived benefits, concerns, and comfort with using this technology in various scenarios. Through this first systematic look into users’ perceptions of facial recognition in the physical world, we shed light on the tension between FR adoption and users’ concerns. Taken together, our findings have broad implications that advance the Privacy and Security community’s understanding of FR through the lens of users, where we presented guidelines for future research in these directions.

Dynamics of Organizational Distrust: An Exploratory Study in Workplace Safety

Although there are numerous studies on how to establish a safety-climate within organizations, knowledge about how distrust, as a distinct factor, develops and can be best managed in the occupational safety context is limited. Instead of taking a normative perspective of how distrust is developed in Individualist-Western cultures, and using it as the center to understand distrust development in collectivist non-Western cultures, this paper takes an exploratory method, which allows participants to identify the content and variety of elements they think significant in distrust development. This study also aims to address how distrust might best be managed by identifying a set of practices. Data from occupational health and safety (OHS) specialists and OHS academicians working in Turkey were collected through open-ended questionnaire forms, and content analysis was performed. While the opposite ends of Ability, Benevolence, and Integrity, respectively Incompetence, Malevolence, and Deceit were found to be essential aspects of organizational (dis)trustworthiness, External factors appeared as a context-specific dimension of distrust. It is found that the absence of hygiene factors and good relations with employees has a noticeable influence on distrust formation. Drawing on this evidence and the data collected, distrust overcoming practices, which are more affective in nature and focus on better material conditions, are offered.

What do the business employers want? A sequential mixed methods exploration of information professionals’ competencies

PurposeThe job market of library and information professionals has expanded from academic to industrial, special and business libraries. The unique nature of the organizations, their data and clientele demand a different set of competencies. The purpose of this study is to explore the competencies of information professionals from the perspectives of business employers – a comparatively new job place for the library and information management professionals.Design/Methodology/ApproachExploratory sequential mixed methods approach was used to meet objectives of this study in two phases. In the first phase, qualitative data was extracted from panel discussion. Themes were extracted from this qualitative data. In the second phase, a questionnaire was designed which was based on qualitative themes. The instrument contained the nine-point Likert type scale and was filled by the business and industry human resource managers. The quantitatively gathered data were analysed while using descriptive and inferential statistical techniques in the Statistical Package for Social Sciences SPSS version 22.FindingsThe findings of this study indicate that work coordination, knowledge of intellectual property rights, online searching ability, leadership qualities, trustworthiness and background knowledge of the prospective organizations are the basic competencies required by the business employers.Practical ImplicationsThis study will guide the students on which qualities they are required to obtain to qualify for jobs of information professionals in the current employment sector. Additionally, it will provide guidelines to the continuous education programme designers, prompting them to include in their trainings the vital qualities of candidates required by the current job market.Originality ValueThis is the maiden study that has explored the competencies of library and information management professionals through exploratory sequential mixed methods.

Who’s to Blame? The Role of Economic Factors in Organizational Trust

In the current research, we provide evidence that trust between employees and their organizations unfold within a larger macroeconomic context rather than operating in a vacuum. Organizational trust is an essential component in the employee-employer relationship that is often undermined by negative events (i.e., job insecurity). In our research, we hypothesize that employees who are experiencing job insecurity are less likely to attribute the cause of their insecurity to managerial ineptitude or bad intent when they are exposed to poor economic conditions protecting organizational management from losing trustworthiness. Two studies found evidence consistent with our theorizing. With data from 4,612 employees surveyed across 55 regions in Central Europe, Study 1 demonstrates that a poor economic environment mitigates the negative relationship between job insecurity and organizational trust. Study 2 experimentally induced the perception that the U.S. economy is performing poorly with a sample of 538 U.S. employees and found that this perception led employees to attribute their insecure situation to the economy rather than to the management of their organization. By demonstrating that the economic context shapes assessments of organizational trustworthiness, our research opens new avenues for future work to bridge micro and macro levels of theories.

Intervener trustworthiness predicts cooperation with conservation interventions in an elephant conflict public goods game

Abstract Conservation conflicts exist in complex socio‐ecological systems and are damaging to both people and wildlife. There is much interest in designing interventions to manage them more effectively, but the importance of who does the intervening remains underexplored. In particular, conflicts are influenced by perceptions of the trustworthiness of natural resource managers and conservation organizations. However, experimental studies of how the different facets of trustworthiness shape responses to interventions are rare in conflict settings. We develop an experimental, framed public goods game to test how support for otherwise identical elephant conflict interventions varies with perceptions of the trustworthiness of two different intervening groups—a community group or a conservation organization—and compare game behaviour to pre‐ and post‐game interviews. Results from three agro‐pastoral communities (n = 212 participants) in northern Tanzania show that participants cooperate more with interveners they perceive to be more trustworthy. Results also suggest that different aspects of trustworthiness matter differentially—with perceptions of interveners' integrity and benevolence more strongly predicting cooperation than perceptions of their ability. The findings suggest that trust‐building and greater consideration of who is best placed to intervene in conflicts may help improve natural resource management and increase stakeholder support for conservation interventions. This study also further demonstrates how experimental games offer opportunities to test behaviour change interventions and help to inform evidence‐based conservation. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOUR AND ALTRUISM

The article deals with the definition and description of the concept of altruism from its ethical and philosophical side against the background of prosocial behaviour. We point out the relation between prosocial behaviour of man and altruism based on a summary of respondents 'opinions on the issues of trustworthiness and efficiency of charitable organizations, respondents' participation in their support and the most common way of donation. Effective altruism is supposed to be a kind of helper for people who want to donate part of their money to charity organizations to improve the world, but are unable to make the right decision about whose financial contribution they are donating. Distrust of charities is becoming more and more current, leading people to stagnate charity. The lack of information on efficiency, functioning, results and a non-transparent list of sources of funding for charitable organizations has prompted us to be more interested in this area. A transparent list of the most effective charities with detailed information on the use of funds to which every person would have access could be a way to express charity and humanity more than ever before. The most ideal scenario is for all people to adopt such behaviour, but in today's world there is the opposite extreme - egoism, selfishness, individualism, materialism and lack of interest in others, which, unfortu-nately, often hide behind altruism. Society, as such, cannot do without altruistic be-haviour, so even "impure" motives can bear fruit, of course, to some extent. Altruism is most often confused with the concept of pro-sociality, as a way of helping others, without expecting the reward that can come, but forms the core not only of ethical education but of each education because it leads to more positive relationships. Living in a society where there is positive energy and people are helping each other is a fuller life.

An Analysis of China Health Charity Credibility Before and After the 2016 Charity Law of the People’s Republic of China

Due to corruption and limited oversight, philanthropy in China has come under increasing scrutiny by both the Chinese government and public. In particular, corruption has impacted charities, resulting in operational funding declines that have also impacted legitimate charities serving the vulnerable. Hence, an increase in the number of Chinese charities without adequate transparency and needed good governance threatens the health of these organizations and their service groups. In response, the Chinese government enacted the 2016 Charity Law, implemented on September 1, 2016. Yet the impact of this law, if any, is unknown. We therefore conducted a literature review of the academic and gray literature to assess characteristics of the law, its strengths and limitations, and to explore anti-corruption case studies. In addition, we reviewed publicly available secondary data on the transparency status—complete financial information and responsible staff—of Chinese charity organizations and a group of health-related specific charities before and after the Law’s enactment. This included the transparency scores of the top 100 charities and top 30 health-related charities in China. The academic literature we reviewed focused on general governmental corruption and little on charity-related corruption. However, the gray literature reflected a poor view of charities in China due to publicized claims of fund and abuse. Based on our secondary data analysis, we found charity organizations’ transparency shows some variation but as a total continues to score low overall across the top net asset holding charities. Importantly, based on a regression analysis, the transparency scores of Chinese charities did not experience a significant change despite the Charity Law’s enactment. In response, strengthening the Charity Law by enhancing enforcement of financial regulations and implementing systemic good governance measures is needed. Further, efficiency initiatives such as philanthropy de-administration, e-government, and outsourcing monitoring of Chinese charities to external agencies would promote trustworthiness and credibility of Chinese charity organizations now and in the future.