National culture and on-line trust: a study of internet Egyptian users

This research-in-progress investigates cultural issues in e-commerce trust. An experiential survey was conducted with three hundred and seventy Egyptian Internet users, exploring two book-seller web sites. Structure equation modeling analysis suggested that, for the target sample, perceived reputation and perceived familiarity with an Internet store have significant effect on building trust for that store. The paper discusses the importance of these two factors within the Egyptian culture

Quality improvement of manuka honey through the application of high pressure processing

The quality of honey is known to be compromised when it goes through thermal processing due to its negative impact on the unstable and thermolabile honey components which originated from the nectar and bees themselves. This present work is undertaken to access the use of an emerging food preservation technique known as “High Pressure Processing” for treating honey, as an alternative to the conventional thermal processing. In this thesis, honey quality has been addressed by measuring the effects of high pressure processing parameters (pressure, time and temperature) on nutritional properties of honey, namely total phenolic content and antioxidant activity. Honey samples, contained in small pouches, were subjected to different pressures (200-600 MPa) at close to ambient temperatures (25-33°C) for different holding times (10 to 30 min). Thermal processing (49- 70°C) was also carried out for comparison purpose. Results demonstrated that high pressure processing operated at 600 MPa for 10 min has capability to increase significantly the total phenolic content and antioxidant activity by 47% and 30%, respectively. Besides, the result showed that high pressure processing can maintain the natural colour of honey which relates directly to consumer perception, while retaining its shear-thinning behaviour and viscosity with no significant changes (p > 0.05). High pressure processing can also control hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) concentration in honey during process within the standard limit, 16.93 to 18.76 mg/kg (which is below than the maximum allowed limit of 40 mg/kg). This work also reveals that high pressure processing can enhance antibacterial activity of Manuka honey significantly. It shows an increase in the percentage inhibition of Staphylococcus epidermidis from 64.15 ± 5.86% to 84.34 ± 7.62% when honey was subjected to 600 MPa. Storage studies for one year at room temperature (25°C) demonstrated that high pressure-treated samples have a good retention to the physicochemical, nutritional and rheological properties of honey throughout storage, which confirms that the positive effect of high pressure on honey is not a temporary effect. Whereas, an insight study on the safety part showed that the Saccharomyces cerevisiae cell varied linearly with ° Brix, indicating that food compressibility has a significant role in the microbial inactivation

The State of e-Banking Implementation in Nigeria: A Post-Consolidation Review

The most widely used e-Banking instrument in �igeria is e-Payment, particularly the automatic teller machine (ATM) card. However, with the adoption of e-Banking by all the banks in �igeria, the volume of cash in circulation has continued to increase pre-and-post bank recapitalization/consolidation exercise. Furthermore, some of the 25 banks that survived the exercise were found lately to have depleted their capital base and have lost credibility before the consumers, e-Banking implementation notwithstanding. Therefore, in this paper, we review the state of e-Banking implementation in �igeria and evaluate the influence of trust on the adoption of e-Payment using an extended technology acceptance model (TAM). Similarly, we investigate organizational reputation, perceived risk and perceived trust in the management of banks as a factor for enhancing customer loyalty. The findings in this work reveal that perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness are not only antecedent to ebanking acceptance, they are also factors to retain customers to the use of e-banking system such as organizational reputation, perceived risk and trust

The Mediation Effect of Trusting Beliefs on the Relationship Between Expectation-Confirmation and Satisfaction with the Usage of Online Product Recommendation

Online Product Recommendations (OPRs) are increasingly available to onlinecustomers as a value-added self-service in evaluating and choosing a product.Research has highlighted several advantages that customers can gain from usingOPRs. However, the realization of these advantages depends on whether and towhat extent customers embrace and fully utilise them. The relatively low OPR USAgerate indicates that customers have not yet developed trust in OPRs’ performance.Past studies also have established that satisfaction is a valid measure of systemperformance and a consistent significant determinant of users’ continuous systemusage. Therefore, this study aimed to examine the mediation effect of trustingbeliefs on the relationship between expectation-confirmation and satisfaction. Theproposed research model is tested using data collected via an online survey from626 existing users of OPRs. The empirical results revealed that social-psychologicalbeliefs (perceived confirmation and trust) are significant contributors to customersatisfaction with OPRs. Additionally, trusting beliefs partially mediate the impactof perceived confirmation on customer satisfaction. Moreover, this study validatesthe extensions of the interpersonal trust construct to trust in OPRs and examinesthe nomological validity of trust in terms of competence, benevolence, andintegrity. The findings provide a number of theoretical and practical implications.&nbsp

A game theoretic model for digital identity and trust in online communities

Digital identity and trust management mechanisms play an important role on the Internet. They help users make decisions on trustworthiness of digital identities in online communities or ecommerce environments, which have significant security consequences. This work aims to contribute to construction of an analytical foundation for digital identity and trust by adopting a quantitative approach. A game theoretic model is developed to quantify community effects and other factors in trust decisions. The model captures factors such as peer pressure and personality traits. The existence and uniqueness of a Nash equilibrium solution is studied and shown for the trust game defined. In addition, synchronous and asynchronous update algorithms are shown to converge to the Nash equilibrium solution. A numerical analysis is provided for a number of scenarios that illustrate the interplay between user behavior and community effects

Trust and Experience in Online Auctions

This paper aims to shed light on the complexities and difficulties in predicting the effects of trust and the experience of online auction participants on bid levels in online auctions. To provide some insights into learning by bidders, a field study was conducted first to examine auction and bidder characteristics from eBay auctions of rare coins. We proposed that such learning is partly because of institutional-based trust. Data were then gathered from 453 participants in an online experiment and survey, and a structural equation model was used to analyze the results. This paper reveals that experience has a nonmonotonic effect on the levels of online auction bids. Contrary to previous research on traditional auctions, as online auction bidders gain more experience, their level of institutional-based trust increases and leads to higher bid levels. Data also show that both a bidder’s selling and bidding experiences increase bid levels, with the selling experience having a somewhat stronger effect. This paper offers an in-depth study that examines the effects of experience and learning and bid levels in online auctions. We postulate this learning is because of institutional-based trust. Although personal trust in sellers has received a significant amount of research attention, this paper addresses an important gap in the literature by focusing on institutional-based trust