Trust-Based Service Selection

Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is an architectural style that builds enterprise solutions based on services. In SOA, the lack of trust between different parties affects the adoption of such architecture. Trust is as significant a factor for successful online interactions as it is in real life communities, and consequently, it is an important factor that is used as a criterion for service selection. In the context of online services and SOA, the literature shows that the field of trust is not mature. Trust definition and the consideration of the essentials of trust aspects do not reflect the true nature of trust online. This thesis proposes a trust-based service selection solution, which requires establishing trust for services and supporting service selection based on trust. This work considers building trust for service providers besides rating services, an area that is neglected in the literature. This work follows progressive steps to arrive at a solution. First, this work develops a trust definition and identifies trust principles, which cover different aspects of trust. Next, SOA is extended to build a trust-based SOA that supports trust-based service selection. In particular, a new component, the trust mediator, which is responsible for trust establishment is added to the architecture. Accordingly, a trust mediator framework is built according to the trust definition and principles to identify its main components. Subsequently, this work identifies the trust information, or metrics, for services and service providers. Accordingly, trust models are built to evaluate trust rates for the applicable metrics, services, and service providers. Moreover, this work addresses the trust bootstrapping challenge. The proposed trust bootstrapping approach addresses different challenges in the literature such as whitewashing and cold start. This approach is implemented through experiments, evaluations, and scenarios

Talking to the Empowered Consumer Dealing with the Shift of Power

The concept of the empowered consumer cannot be considered as a field of exact scientific research yet. Nevertheless, it has become part of scholars’ interest and gains more and more importance in the research of organisational relationships with customers. It is suggested that two influencing criteria are especially at the forefront: The emergence of the Internet, which effected that barriers to collect and to disseminate information across boundaries were decisively reduced. As a consequence consumers could organise globally and collect and exchange information and experiences about organisations and their products. Furthermore, flexible interactivity between companies and consumers, but particularly from consumers to consumers enable direct interaction changing many previously established rules of doing business. Due to these new opportunities new business models developed and the proposition is that intangible values such as reputation gained even more importance and influence tangible outcomes. Suggestions are that 1.), this concept links communication, corporate behaviour and legitimacy of activities influencing reputation as a driver of value. 2.), reputation as a corporate asset can be managed but it is beyond the pure control of an organisation. 3.), reputation is part of public perception, which an organisation has to build, maintain and expand depending on communicative abilities and willingness to accept consumers as a centre of power. The following discussion will present Grunig et al.’s communication model explaining changed organisational challenges. It is put forward as a framework for marketing for times in which online opportunities added to the earlier b2b and b2c models c2c and P2P considerations and architectures. The annual studies of the market research institute puls undertaking regular representative research among German consumers since November 2005 will present evidence for the relationship of improved prices, which may be achieved, and the perception a firm possesses. This paper deals mostly with German examples and data, but the hypothesis is that a) the general situation in other Western countries is alike, but needs b) specific additional research, since cultural differences are expected to have a considerable influence, especially when criteria such as individualist and collectivist organisation of society and high and low context communication styles are involved. Hence, the results of the same study in different countries are therefore expected to present some variation. Additionally, the Cluetrain Manifesto challenges corporate behaviour of those companies still believing to have the ability to control information disseminated by and written about it. Examples provided will support the hypothesis that powerful consumers may have significant impact on organisational behaviour, decision-making and outcomes. Keywords: Empowered Consumer Concept, Symmetric Two-way communication, Reputation, c2c, P2

Honest Certification and the Threat of Capture

This paper derives conditions under which reputation enables certifiers to resist capture. These conditions alone have strong implications for the industrial organization of certification markets: 1) Honest certification requires high prices that may even exceed the static monopoly price. 2) Honest certification exhibits economies of scale and constitutes a natural monopoly. 3) Price competition tends to a monopolization. The results derive from a general principle of reputation models that favors concentration. This principle implies benefits from specialization and explains specialized certifiers as efficient market institutions that sell reputation as a service to other firms.certification; collusion; bribery; reputation; natural monopoly

Cognitive finance: Behavioural strategies of spending, saving, and investing.

Research in economics is increasingly open to empirical results. The advances in behavioural approaches are expanded here by applying cognitive methods to financial questions. The field of "cognitive finance" is approached by the exploration of decision strategies in the financial settings of spending, saving, and investing. Individual strategies in these different domains are searched for and elaborated to derive explanations for observed irregularities in financial decision making. Strong context-dependency and adaptive learning form the basis for this cognition-based approach to finance. Experiments, ratings, and real world data analysis are carried out in specific financial settings, combining different research methods to improve the understanding of natural financial behaviour. People use various strategies in the domains of spending, saving, and investing. Specific spending profiles can be elaborated for a better understanding of individual spending differences. It was found that people differ along four dimensions of spending, which can be labelled: General Leisure, Regular Maintenance, Risk Orientation, and Future Orientation. Saving behaviour is strongly dependent on how people mentally structure their finance and on their self-control attitude towards decision space restrictions, environmental cues, and contingency structures. Investment strategies depend on how companies, in which investments are placed, are evaluated on factors such as Honesty, Prestige, Innovation, and Power. Further on, different information integration strategies can be learned in decision situations with direct feedback. The mapping of cognitive processes in financial decision making is discussed and adaptive learning mechanisms are proposed for the observed behavioural differences. The construal of a "financial personality" is proposed in accordance with other dimensions of personality measures, to better acknowledge and predict variations in financial behaviour. This perspective enriches economic theories and provides a useful ground for improving individual financial services

Trustee: A Trust Management System for Fog-enabled Cyber Physical Systems

In this paper, we propose a lightweight trust management system (TMS) for fog-enabled cyber physical systems (Fog-CPS). Trust computation is based on multi-factor and multi-dimensional parameters, and formulated as a statistical regression problem which is solved by employing random forest regression model. Additionally, as the Fog-CPS systems could be deployed in open and unprotected environments, the CPS devices and fog nodes are vulnerable to numerous attacks namely, collusion, self-promotion, badmouthing, ballot-stuffing, and opportunistic service. The compromised entities can impact the accuracy of trust computation model by increasing/decreasing the trust of other nodes. These challenges are addressed by designing a generic trust credibility model which can countermeasures the compromise of both CPS devices and fog nodes. The credibility of each newly computed trust value is evaluated and subsequently adjusted by correlating it with a standard deviation threshold. The standard deviation is quantified by computing the trust in two configurations of hostile environments and subsequently comparing it with the trust value in a legitimate/normal environment. Our results demonstrate that credibility model successfully countermeasures the malicious behaviour of all Fog-CPS entities i.e. CPS devices and fog nodes. The multi-factor trust assessment and credibility evaluation enable accurate and precise trust computation and guarantee a dependable Fog-CPS system

Panel: IS has outgrown the need for reference discipline theories, or has it?

In the decade since the creation of wireless handheld devices, mobile commerce (m-commerce) has become a ubiquitous channel for accessing information and conducting business. Mobile users can now access information anytime and anywhere. Mobile advertising, retailing, and gambling are popular, and gradually the competition among mobile services providers turns fierce. Hence, some services providers adopt personalization technologies to customize content for their users. This paper explores the opportunities and challenges of the use of personalization technologies in m-commerce. Although the effectiveness of personalization on the web is well-examined, there is little work on personalization in mobile services. The debates regarding the effectiveness of personalization and technological limitations and privacy concerns motivate us to conduct focus groups with mobile users, and explore the opportunities and challenges of personalized mobile services. The focus groups findings illustrate that mobile users are very concerned about their privacy and spam. We then extract a list of personal information from the focus groups findings. This list of personal information is highly related to mobile users’ privacy concerns. We conduct an online survey to gain a better understanding of which piece of information mobile users are more willing to share with services providers and we perform a multi-dimensional scale analysis

Antecedents of consumer trust in mobile payment adoption

This study empirically examines the role of consumer trust and its antecedents in determining consumers’ intention to adopt mobile payment. This research proposes that consumers’ willingness to adopt mobile payment depends on their assessment of the trustworthiness of mobile service provider and vendor, their assessment of the functional reliability of mobile payment systems as well as their general disposition to trust and their cultural background, in particular, uncertainty avoidance. Data were gathered from 302 participants in Auckland, New Zealand. Results show that all five sets of trust antecedents influence the development of trust and trust is an important predictor of intention to adopt mobile payment. Both theoretical and practical implications are discussed

An Exploration of Bass and Avolio\u27s Transformational and Transactional Leadership Styles and Values of South Texas and Northern Mexico Small Business Owners

Global business initiatives, increasingly diverse populations, and permeable geographical boundaries have catapulted interest in studying the impact of these events on multi-national companies, and to a lesser degree, small businesses along the South Texas and Mexican border. The enactment of the North American Free Trade Act agreement that exists between Mexico, Canada, and the United States amplifies these issues. Consequently, companies may face a changing business landscape. However, one constant factor is the owner. This dissertation investigated South Texas and northern Mexico small business owners\u27 leadership behaviors and personal values. First, this study represents an attempt to ascertain similarities and differences between their application of transformational and transactional leadership behaviors. Second, the study focused on identifying values these leaders considered essential to portray and deemed important for their employees to emulate. Bass and Avolio\u27s full-range, sixfactor leadership model, and Schwartz\u27s Values theories served as templates for organizing and understanding the theoretical foundation for this qualitative study. This phenomenological study utilized a purposeful, non-random sample consisting of five South Texas and five Mexican small business owners. Data collection methods included collection of Multifactor Leadership (MLQ) and Schwartz\u27s Values inventory results, thick descriptions based on questions linked to MLQ six-factors derived from personal interviews, research observations, and written field notes. Data was analyzed at three levels: Per individual cases, within-cases, and across-case investigation of both samples. Study findings specified a clear preference for demonstrating the transactional factors, contingent reward, and management by exception-active by both samples. A recurring theme of using bonuses and incentive pay primarily as reward tools (contingent reward) also emerged in both samples. Honesty and responsibility items linked to the motivational value type benevolence, surfaced as very important values across both sample groups for both leaders and employees to demonstrate. A key difference was that the northern Mexican respondents demonstrated behavioral factors encouraging employee development in preparation for future growth, as opposed to South Texas respondents who trained and coached employees for their current job skill deficiencies. Further research is recommended to include collecting interview and inventory data from others who routinely interact with the business owner; data to determine the impact transformational and transactional leader behaviors have on performance results, and the inclusion of female business owners. This study offers future researchers a framework to conduct additional research on the leadership practices of similar constituents