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Trust is a social factor at the foundations of human action. The pervasiveness of trust explains why it has been studied by a large variety of disciplines, and its complexity justifies the difficulties in reaching a shared understanding and definition. As for all the social factors, trust is continuously evolving as a result of the changes in social, economic and technological conditions. The internet and many other Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) solutions have changed organizational and social life. Such mutated scenarios challenged what researchers know about trust, thus several studies tried to investigate the difference between online and traditional (physical) environments. The purpose of this paper is to solve this multi‐dimensional puzzle by presenting a conceptual framework that will take into consideration the complexity of ICT mediated‐trust.

The extant literature still lacks a homogeneous framework and presents a large amount of different perspectives, each one addressing a very specific issue. By using the methodology suggested by Short and Cropanzano the paper proposes a conceptual model for understanding the dynamics of trust in online settings. In doing so the authors' adopted the Actor Network Theory conceptual frame for disentangling the ambiguous role of technology in its relation with trust.

This paper provides an ultimate conceptual model on trust in virtual settings.

The proposed model will help systematize the extant contributions and also identify the gaps that can be addressed by future researches.

The model permits the understanding of the dynamics of trust in online settings.

The purpose of the editorial is to remember Professor Alessandro D'Atri, a pioneering Information Systems Scholar with whom the author collaborated for about 15 years. The main outcome of such collaboration is the conference Ethicomp 1999 in Rome. Following that conference the author has started elaborating a paper “Metaethics and the future of computer ethics” (Marturano) which was widely cited and quoted in the field. Thence the author has discussed its impact in the field and discussed some following papers dealing with similar topics. It emerged that such a paper is still a valid one for its perspectives but still not understood as for most of its ethical suggestions.

The paper is mainly philosophical and critical. It uses mostly critical analysis of papers dealing with the same topics.

The perspectives and the seminal ideas of the author's paper “Metaethics and the future of computer ethics” (Marturano) are still valid and, in some extent, are more fruitful than some following papers covering the same topics.

The value of this guest editorial is in remembering a very valuable and pioneering scholar – Alessandro D'Atri and comparing the author's paper's findings with other similar papers, which results in a better understanding of theoretical problems in the discipline.

Understanding how value is actually generated in e‐government projects is one of the most challenging, and relevant, issues in e‐government research. This paper aims to investigate the contribution of service‐based information technology (IT) integration for generating value in the public sector, proposing a theoretical framework based on the theory of IT conversion effectiveness.

The paper illustrates this novel approach to electronic government evaluation with an exploratory case study of a service‐based IT integration project developed by the City of Genoa, showing how and why IT integration can substantially contribute to value generation in the public sector.

Contrarily to what one would expect according to the original theory of IT conversion effectiveness, value generation may happen even with no substantial growth in the pre‐existing IT asset portfolio. In fact, what is truly important is not only the availability of IT assets (policy output), but also their proper use (policy outcome) and their final effects on policy takers (policy impact). The case study shows how a low‐cost and small IT integration project based on agile information system development practices can significantly leverage the legacy systems, enhancing the overall degree of IT conversion effectiveness (first stage), with expected positive effects on policy outcomes (second stage) and policy impacts (third stage). The enabling effect of the web services technology has a central role in the overall value generation process.

While addressing a literature void in the context of public sector, this theoretical approach is substantial as it can be used to evaluate and maximize the value generated by e‐government projects, with a special focus on service‐based IT integration projects.