Trading Partner Trust in Electronic Commerce Participation

The growth of business-to-business e-commerce has highlighted the role of computer and communications technologies as well as inter-organizational trust in developing and maintaining business-to-business relationships. Despite the acknowledged importance of trust, only a limited amount of research exists and that examines the role of trust in these relationships. By investigating inter-organizational relationships andtrust in e-commerce, this study will enable us to identify factors leading to successful e-commerce participation (adoption and integration). Drawing on theories such as trust in business relationships, inter-organizational relationship theories, transaction cost economics, and resource dependency theory, this paper develops a conceptual model to examine the impact of trading partner trust in e-commerce participation. The model is currently being tested through multiple in-depth case studies. The findings of the case studies are expected to increase the awareness of e-commerce adopters and implementers about the importance of trading partner trust in e-commerce participation

Trust: The Panacea of Virtual Management

As more and more information systems (IS) development teams work in distributed arrangements, concerns about enhancing virtual workers’ effectiveness will become more common and important for IS management. Trust between managers and employees can potentially enhance employee effectiveness by reducing uncer- tainty and increasing satisfaction and commitment. To study this, employees’ perceptions of interpersonal trust between themselves and their manager in both a virtual management and a non-virtual management environ- ment were quantitatively examined (n = 631). Contrary to suggestions in the literature, it was found that trust had a larger impact on key outcome variables such as job satisfaction and job stress for non-virtually-managed workers than it did for virtual workers. The results also suggest that cognition-based trust is more important than affect-based trust in a virtual workplace. Managers should concentrate on activities that demonstrate their competence, responsibility and professionalism, since this increases cognition-based trust. Although trust is an important determinant of effectiveness for organizations to manage, it does not appear to be any more important in a virtual setting than it is in a non-virtual setting