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The purpose of this paper is to identify trust‐building signals and signaling patterns of commercial and non‐commercial wine bloggers within a trustworthiness framework and assess prominence of balanced versus unbalanced resource‐based or compensatory approaches for the management of consumer trust beliefs and the facilitation of positive trust intentions.

Development and validation of theory‐based signal‐classification scheme and two‐stage content analysis of trust‐building signals embedded in wine blogs.

It is found that wine bloggers manage consumer trust beliefs using an unbalanced signaling approach emphasizing ability over character. Ability sub‐dimension signals vary by commercial orientation. Also, character signaling varies with commercial orientation.

Only English‐language wine blogs were studied. Limitations of content analysis procedures preclude direct evaluation of signal efficacy in absolute or contextualized terms.

Bloggers must secure reader trustworthiness to be effective communicators. Readers are likely to possess latent concerns about the bias of commercial bloggers and abilities of non‐commercial ones. Bloggers recognize the importance of ability signaling but may not be fully exploiting their positions of perceived advantage nor fully compensating for their distinctive inherent perceived weaknesses.

Trustworthiness signaling in wine blogs has implications for bloggers in other contexts, including consumer and non‐consumer information environments and not‐for‐profit and governmental communicators. Blog and blogger trustworthiness must be addressed by these communicators to effect audience persuasion.

The paper discusses deductive development and validation of a novel signal classification scheme applied to trust building by bloggers that, through analysis of signal content, sheds light on behavior of commercial and non‐commercial information sources in emerging product information environments.

Trust has long been viewed as a potential governance mechanism. However, recent research discloses substantive incongruities in trust conceptualization and operationalization – especially in the supply chain buyer/supplier context. The purpose of this paper is to develop an empirically grounded conceptualization of trust and to explore the trust-construction process.

The authors used the communications rationality approach to elaborate a three-stage qualitative study of supply chain trust. The authors first monologically examine trust by interviewing managers from over 50 companies (as described). The list of trust behaviors are then dialogically refined through 11 focus studies comprised of over 250 managers into different trust dimensions (as agreed upon). Finally, the authors used two in-depth, dyadic case studies to examine the dynamic trust construction process (as witnessed).

The authors find divergence in the way academics define trust and the way companies operationalize trust. Missing in action is the notion of benevolence. In the supply chain setting, managers describe trust as consisting of credibility and relationship commitment. Companies use an iterative approach to signal trustworthiness. However, ambiguity increases the costs and decreases the effectiveness of proactive trust construction as a form of supply chain governance.

The authors specify and evaluate novel constructs used to signal trustworthiness and document why and how companies struggle to use the signaling process efficiently and effectively. For some, this is an issue of managerial commitment. For others, this represents a lack of understanding of trustworthiness signals and the trust-construction process. Ultimately, the authors develop a more robust conceptualization of inter-organizational trust and present a roadmap for proactive trust construction.

The level of trust in a service provider is an important decision factor when buying industrial services. Especially, the outcome uncertainties of services, its individuality, and asymmetric information between buyer and seller are some reasons that the evaluation of trust is a key component in service trading. Consequently, searching of potential new suppliers involves examining providers’ trustworthiness. This paper focuses on the study of online trust signals used by buyers, to assess provider’s trustworthiness in the context of industrial services. The main research objective is to propose the basis for a digital tool, which helps buyers to assess provider’s trustworthiness by providing a “standardized trustworthiness signal description” and “trust functionalities.” A particular approach is used, wherein different methods are mixed such as a case study, expert interviews, and a quantitative method following the guideline of the design science paradigm. The aim is to propose a useful tool for trustworthiness assessment to enhance e-markets for industrial services.

The purpose of this study is to explore factors that help to determine employee trust in and affective commitment toward the organization.

Data for this study were collected using surveys administered to employees of a company located in the southeastern United States. The final sample included 391 matched supervisor–subordinate dyads.

We found organizational signals of trustworthiness led to affective commitment through increased levels of employee trust. Employees and supervisors who perceived HR professionals to be competent, who felt organizational information distributions were of high quality and who felt the organization disclosed relevant information exhibited higher levels of trust in the organization. Employees showed higher affective commitment when they trusted the organization. We found that supervisor trust directly impacted subordinate affective commitment as well.

These findings help extend signaling theory from the attraction of employees to their retention and help researchers and practitioners alike to understand the organizational trust- and commitment-building process.

Drawing on the signaling theory and the relational exchange theory, this study investigates how buyer–supplier trust is influenced through the congruence and incongruence between blockchain and norm of solidarity. The moderating role of technology uncertainty is further examined.

Using a survey data of 110 Chinese firms, this study empirically tests not only the combined effect of blockchain and norm of solidarity on trust, but also how this combined effect is moderated by technology uncertainty. The proposed hypotheses are tested using the polynomial regression analysis and the response surface methodology.

The results suggest that trust increases along with an increasing congruence between blockchain and norm or solidarity, but in a diminishing rate (i.e. an inverted U-shaped relationship). Simultaneously, incongruence between blockchain and norm of solidarity can also guarantee sufficient trust (i.e. a U-shaped relationship). Moreover, technology uncertainty overturns the inverted U-shaped relationship between blockchain and norm of solidarity congruence on trust into a U-shaped relationship and nullifies the U-shaped relationship between blockchain and norm of solidarity incongruence on trust.

This study enriches supply chain governance literature by introducing the emerging blockchain governance and examining the blockchain governance's interplay with a conventional relational norm. The study emphasizes that the combined effects of these two are quite complex. Blockchain and norm of solidarity can offset each other’s limitations when both are at low to moderate levels. But simultaneous pursuit of both high blockchain and norm has only limited marginal benefits. Furthermore, the study also highlights the importance of technology uncertainty under which the combined effects between the two governance mechanisms vary. Collectively, the results provide nuanced insights into the design of supply chain governance portfolios in the digital era.

Trust is a vital ingredient in modern supply chain (SC) alliances. Yet, most measures of trust are rather simplistic. This paper aims to review the trust literature to identify the different facets of SC trust. A multi‐faceted measure of trust is then developed and used to benchmark the extent to which trust signals are used in alliance management.

Multi‐method: 50 preliminary interviews were conducted and 189 surveys were collected.

Benchmarking buyers' trust‐building strategies reveals that most companies lack the know‐how and ability to develop high levels of trust. Most companies have implemented strategies to signal their performance capability, leading to a level of transactional trust. However, few companies have recognized the need to signal to their SC partners their commitment to the relationship – leaving them without the ability to establish the trust levels needed to drive breakthrough collaboration.

The paper introduces the importance of signaling trustworthiness in a SC context. It develops relationship commitment as an important dimension of trust, and explains the trust cycle within the context of an exchange cycle. It also takes steps toward developing a more robust and meaningful measure of SC trust.

This paper examines how inter-organizational and interpersonal trust are created and how these trust levels can be balanced to create positive outcomes in high-involvement customer–supplier relationships. Using a theoretical analysis and conceptual development, we propose a framework highlighting different drivers and moderators of the two trust levels. The integrative framework emphasizes the antecedents of interpersonal and inter-organizational trust (competence, honesty, and benevolence vs transparency and foreseeing conflicts) and the role of relational signaling as a moderator to catalyze the “leap of faith,” as well as the articulation of trust-level bases and outcomes. The paper contributes to the discussion on trust levels’ drivers and the need to use relational signaling in order to create and maintain effective trust at the interpersonal and inter-organizational levels. Unlike most of the existing literature, we argue that interpersonal trust does not necessarily develop into the fold of inter-organizational trust. Studying the antecedents and consequences of trust in the context of high-involvement relationships adds new insights to the understanding of customer–supplier relationships.

The purpose of this paper is to advance product appeal and website appeal as focal psychological mechanisms that can be invoked by business-to-consumer e-commerce sites to mitigate problems of information asymmetry via signaling to bolster consumers’ purchase intention under the influence of trust.

Survey approach was employed to validate the research model.

Website appeal partially mediates the positive effect of product appeal on consumers’ purchase intention. Trust in e-commerce sites not only increases purchase intention directly, but it also reinforces the positive relationship between website appeal and purchase intention while attenuating the positive relationship between product appeal and purchase intention. Service content quality, search delivery quality, and enjoyment are confirmed as positive antecedents of website appeal whereas diagnosticity and justifiability are established as positive antecedents of product appeal.

This study not only delineates product and website appeal as complementary drivers of consumer purchase on e-commerce sites, but it also derives five signals that aid in bolstering both product and website appeal. Trust is revealed to exert a moderating influence on the impact of product and website appeal on purchase intention.

Practitioners should prioritize their resource allocation to enhance qualities most pertinent to product and website appeal. E-commerce sites should offer product-oriented functionalities to facilitate product diagnosticity and reassure consumers of their purchase decisions.

This study distinguishes between product and website appeal as well as between their respective antecedents. It also uncovers how trust can alter the effects of both website and product appeal on consumers’ purchase intention.

This study aims to examine the trustworthiness of internet-based quality signals (specifically webpages and before-sale services) from the perspective of interactivity by evaluating the associations between on-line signals of product quality and the off-line perceived quality of actual products.

Empirical data are collected from 261 Chinese female university students. Partial least squares structural equation modelling is used to test the conceptual model.

Both webpages and before-sale services are positively associated with off-line perceived quality, but only the quality of before-sale service has a direct association with customer satisfaction. Webpages and before-sale services are both trustworthy signals for indicating the quality of physical products; however, these signals provide different levels of trustworthiness.

The interactivity perspective supplements information-economics theory in examining the trustworthiness of internet-based signals. A signal is a trustworthy indicator only if customers perceive a close relationship between the quality of the signal and the actual product quality.

On-line sellers should improve the reciprocity and controllability of communications from a buyer’s perspective and should pay more attention to the strategic role of on-line communication for improving customer service.

Researchers have evaluated the trustworthiness of on-line quality signals from an information-economics perspective. This study extends these previous studies by addressing the perspective of interactivity. Two types of product-quality signals, including webpages and before-sale services, are assessed in terms of their trustworthiness by examining how these signals relate to off-line perceived quality and customer satisfaction.

This study aims to explore the influence of accounting on trust development in the context of an acquisition negotiation process at the pre-merger stage.

This study adopted a case study research method. Data have been gathered from an acquisition process of two Finnish companies through 18 semi-structured field interviews with the seller’s, the buyer’s and the merged companies’ top management and external advisors who participated in the process.

The study shows how accounting operated as a trust-building mechanism and served as a substitute for personal-based trust. Accounting assisted the negotiators to surface their initial positive beliefs about the acquisition outcome. Progressively, these positive beliefs outweighed negotiators’ initial negative beliefs regarding the acquisition process. Additionally, accounting enabled the negotiators to show risky behaviors via escalating commitment to the acquisition through ad hoc calculations and continuous discussions.

This study adds to the limited prior research examining interfirm trust and the influence of accounting on trust development during acquisition negotiations.