Trust Model for Optimized Cloud Services

Cloud computing with its inherent advantages draws attention for business critical applications, but concurrently expects high level of trust in cloud service providers. Reputation-based trust is emerging as a good choice to model trust of cloud service providers based on available evidence. Many existing reputation based systems either ignore or give less importance to uncertainty linked with the evidence. In this paper, we propose an uncertainty model and define our approach to compute opinion for cloud service providers. Using subjective logic operators along with the computed opinion values, we propose mechanisms to calculate the reputation of cloud service providers. We evaluate and compare our proposed model with existing reputation models

TRIDEnT: Building Decentralized Incentives for Collaborative Security

Sophisticated mass attacks, especially when exploiting zero-day vulnerabilities, have the potential to cause destructive damage to organizations and critical infrastructure. To timely detect and contain such attacks, collaboration among the defenders is critical. By correlating real-time detection information (alerts) from multiple sources (collaborative intrusion detection), defenders can detect attacks and take the appropriate defensive measures in time. However, although the technical tools to facilitate collaboration exist, real-world adoption of such collaborative security mechanisms is still underwhelming. This is largely due to a lack of trust and participation incentives for companies and organizations. This paper proposes TRIDEnT, a novel collaborative platform that aims to enable and incentivize parties to exchange network alert data, thus increasing their overall detection capabilities. TRIDEnT allows parties that may be in a competitive relationship, to selectively advertise, sell and acquire security alerts in the form of (near) real-time peer-to-peer streams. To validate the basic principles behind TRIDEnT, we present an intuitive game-theoretic model of alert sharing, that is of independent interest, and show that collaboration is bound to take place infinitely often. Furthermore, to demonstrate the feasibility of our approach, we instantiate our design in a decentralized manner using Ethereum smart contracts and provide a fully functional prototype.Comment: 28 page

What Drives Volunteers to Accept a Digital Platform That Supports NGO Projects?

Technology has become the driving force for both economic and social change. However, the recruitment of volunteers into the projects of non-profit-making organizations (NGO) does not usually make much use of information and communication technology (ICT). Organizations in this sector should incorporate and use digital platforms in order to attract the most well-prepared and motivated young volunteers. The main aim of this paper is to use an extended Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to analyze the acceptance of a technological platform that provides a point of contact for non-profit-making organizations and potential volunteers. The TAM is used to find the impact that this new recruitment tool for volunteers can have on an ever-evolving industry. The TAM has been extended with the image and reputation and visual identity variables in order to measure the influence of these non-profit-making organizations on the establishment and implementation of a social network recruitment platform. The data analyzed are from a sample of potential volunteers from non-profit-making organizations in Spain. A structural equation approach using partial least squares was used to evaluate the acceptance model. The results provide an important contribution to the literature about communication in digital environments by non-profit-making organizations as well as strategies to improve their digital reputation

When Do People Trust Their Social Groups?

Trust facilitates cooperation and supports positive outcomes in social groups, including member satisfaction, information sharing, and task performance. Extensive prior research has examined individuals' general propensity to trust, as well as the factors that contribute to their trust in specific groups. Here, we build on past work to present a comprehensive framework for predicting trust in groups. By surveying 6,383 Facebook Groups users about their trust attitudes and examining aggregated behavioral and demographic data for these individuals, we show that (1) an individual's propensity to trust is associated with how they trust their groups, (2) smaller, closed, older, more exclusive, or more homogeneous groups are trusted more, and (3) a group's overall friendship-network structure and an individual's position within that structure can also predict trust. Last, we demonstrate how group trust predicts outcomes at both individual and group level such as the formation of new friendship ties.Comment: CHI 201

Factors that Impact Customers’ Loyalty to Social Commerce Websites

Social commerce (s-commerce) has become rapidly appeared as relatively new area of investigation for both researchers and practitioners. However, there has been little research in the area of customer loyalty to s-commerce websites. The aim of this study is to develop a framework to identify factors affecting customers’ loyalty to s-commerce websites. A web-based survey was used to collect data which were analysed using the partial least squares based on structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM). This study found that satisfaction; trust and social presence have significant influence on loyalty to s-commerce website and found that reputation, satisfaction, word-of-mouth, and social presence positively contribute to explaining the variance in trust. In contrast, communication and online shopping experience didn’t contribute to explain the variance in trust. The findings of this study contribute to the development of businesses strategies of how to retain their customers which will result in higher profits

EDOC2011 PhD Student Symposium Proceedings

Post-proceedings of the EDOC2011 PhD Student Symposium held in Helsinki 26.8.2011.Peer reviewe

The effect of corporate social responsibility on customer loyalty in mobile telephone companies

Purpose: The present study aims at developing and empirically testing a research model that presents the influence of Corporate Social Responsibility on corporate image, customer satisfaction and customer loyalty, demonstrating the direct and indirect effects among these structures. Design/Methodology/Approach: The examination of the proposed research model was carried out using a structured questionnaire completed by 358 mobile users in the city of Kavala. The validity and the reliability of the questionnaire were examined, while for the data analysis the Structural Equation Modeling Technique was used with LISREL 8.80. Findings: The findings of this study indicate that Corporate Social Responsibility have not a significant direct effect on customer loyalty, while corporate image and customer satisfaction have a significant positive effect on customer loyalty. Moreover, the findings provide practical new insights in understanding how a mobile company’s CSR policy could be developed and implemented to help enhance customer loyalty through the mediating effects of customer satisfaction. Practical Implications: The companies would like to understand the implications of its CSR policy implementation, especially in enhancing its corporate image and customer satisfaction in terms of reputation and impression. Originality/Value: This study is a pioneer research in addressing the mediating role played by customer satisfaction for strengthening the relationship between CSR and customer loyalty in mobile phone companies.peer-reviewe

Analysis and evaluation of the largest 500 family firms’ websites through PLS-SEM technique

Dado que pocos estudios relacionan los aspectos técnicos de un sitio web corporativo con la facturación de una empresa, este documento tiene como objetivo examinar cómo la calidad de un sitio web corporativo influye en las redes sociales y la facturación de la empresa en grandes empresas familiares. También se prueba el efecto moderador y mediador de las redes sociales en las relaciones entre la calidad del sitio web y la rotación. Además, el documento realiza un análisis multigrupo para analizar las diferencias entre las empresas familiares con baja y alta concentración de propiedad familiar. La muestra utilizada en el estudio, los sitios web de las 500 empresas familiares más grandes de todo el mundo extraídos del Índice Global de Negocios Familiares compilados por la Universidad de St. Gallen, se analizaron utilizando modelos de ecuaciones estructurales de mínimos cuadrados parciales (PLS-SEM). Los resultados indican que tanto el efecto directo e indirecto de la calidad del sitio web en la rotación como el efecto moderador de las redes sociales en la relación entre la calidad del sitio web y la rotación fueron negativos y significativos. El análisis multigrupo revela algunas diferencias significativas entre ambos grupos. El estudio contribuye a la evaluación de la literatura del sitio web al explorar un nuevo sector de aplicación: las empresas familiares. Además, las empresas familiares más grandes deberían mejorar su presencia en las redes sociales para aumentar sus ventas.As few studies relate the technical aspects of a corporate website to a firm’s turnover, this paper aims to examine how the quality of a corporate website influences social networks and the company’s turnover in large family firms. The moderating and mediating effect of social networks on the relationships between website quality and turnover are also tested. In addition, the paper performs a multigroup analysis to analyze the differences between family businesses with low and high family ownership concentration. The sample used in the study, the largest 500 family firms’ websites around the globe extracted from The Global Family Business Index compiled by the University of St. Gallen, were analyzed using partial least squares–structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The results indicate that both the direct and indirect effect of website quality on turnover and the moderating effect of social networks in the relationship between website quality and turnover were negative and significant. The multigroup analysis reveals some significant differences between both groups. The study contributes to the evaluation of website literature by exploring a new sector of application: family businesses. Moreover, the largest family firms should improve their presence in social networks to increase their sales.• Junta de Extremadura y Fondos FEDER. AyudapeerReviewe