Environment Related Issues

The technology and trust model proposed earlier in this book, included environment related trust issues as one category of determinants of levels of trust in B2B e-commerce. These issues relate to a number of factors that may influence creation of a general environment of trust in B2B e-commerce infrastructure among the members of trading partner community. These factors influence the general attitudes, perceptions, beliefs, etc. of users/trading partners of e-commerce infrastructure, in general. This has affected the business relations among the trading parties involved. Though the inter-organizational systems have helped a lot in improving the business relations, the vulnerability and the virtual environment of such systems give rise to trust issues that may affect the level of adoption of B2B e-commerce. This chapter makes an attempt to empirically examine the relationship between the levels of trust and the identified environment-related trust issues.

Research Design

This chapter describes the strategy and the research design used in the present research process followed in the book. It begins with an overview of the research approach adopted, details the sources of data and outlines the procedures used for collection of data. Later, it describes the design of the measurement instrument used for data collection. It also provides a brief profile of the responding companies and describes the variables and the constructs used in the measurement of these variables. The chapter concludes with a brief description of the tools used for data analysis in the book.

Summary of Findings and Conclusions

This chapter contains a summary of discussions and findings presented in this book. The findings are based primarily on the analysis of the data collected through a field survey of 106 companies who have invested in B2B e-commerce infrastructure. It has been supplemented by the analysis of the data that was collected through an on-line evaluation of 65 B2B e-exchanges in order to examine the relationship between the levels of trust and various trust inducing web dimensions. These results have been discussed in context of the components of the ‘Trust and Technology’ model and the related eleven hypotheses.

Trust and Technology

Chapter 6 to 8 focused on the trust related issues and the practices with regard to effective deployment and implementation of relevant technologies in order to enhance levels of trust in B2B e-commerce. The analysis presented in these chapters was on aggregate basis. In order to get an insight into the contexts and processes behind the initiatives taken by an organization in this regard, it is necessary to study these issues in the context of specific organization. In view of this objective, two case studies were conducted and the trust related issues and the role of technology in addressing these issues were traced. Though the case studies presented in this chapter differ from each other on a number of accounts, more or less similar structure has been used to organize the information contained in each of them. The purpose is to facilitate comparison between the practices being followed by the two companies under study.

Trust and Web Interface

In the brick and mortar world, the trading party makes an assessment of the trustworthiness of the counter party and the trading environment by various physical cues such as physical size of organization, its overall infrastructure, face-to-face interactions, physically examining the product etc. However, in the faceless environment of B2B e-commerce, same physical cues are not available and hence, the trading parties rely on the direct ‘contact point’ - the web-interface or the company’s website/portal to interact and communicate with each other. An effective web interface can induce trust in online environment of B2B e-commerce. The levels of assurance in respect of various dimensions may determine effectiveness of web interface. The present chapter makes an attempt to examine the relationship between the levels of assurance in respect of various dimensions of web interface and the level of trust in B2B e-commerce.

Technology Related Trust Issues

The technology-related trust issues hypothesized in the proposed model include security, authentication, confidentiality, non-repudiation, web interface, system performance and technology-related policies and procedures. These issues can be addressed by maintaining high levels of assurance with respect to various technologies discussed in the previous chapter. As is evident from the earlier discussions, most of these technologies are inter-related and have the potential to address more than one such issue. Based on the levels of assurance in respect of the relevant technologies, an attempt has been made to assess the level of assurance with regard to each of these technology related trust issues. This chapter presents an analysis of the assessment of these levels of assurance.

Trust Related Technology Practices

Trust related issues identified in the proposed ‘Trust and Technology’ model for B2B e-commerce can be addressed by deployment and effective implementation of relevant technologies. The implementation of these technologies would involve following a set of benchmark practices in respect of each technology. This chapter provides an analysis of the practices being followed by Indian companies using inter-organizational systems for B2B e-commerce.

Trust Theories and Models of E-Commerce

The literature on relationship between trust and e-commerce draws heavily on the insight provided by various theories and models of human behavior. A number of trust models have been proposed by various scholars to give a comprehensive view of the concept of trust and its antecedents. This chapter offers a summary of the selected trust theories and models for e-commerce that have been used for conceptualizing the ‘Trust and Technology’ model proposed in the book.

Towards a Rational Technology Approach

This chapter is based on the premise that all information system research must conclude with operational suggestions that can be considered for implementation in organizations. A number of managerial implications emerge from the findings of this study and based on these implications, suggestions can be made to guide the actions of the business managers in their attempt to enhance the levels of trust in B2B e-commerce. It is well recognized that the characteristics of the attendant environment in each business organization is different, and therefore it is not possible to give generalized suggestions in most of the cases. Therefore, an attempt has been made to explore the possibility of identifying a few decision options relating to adoption of various technologies and practices that have the potential to enhance the levels of trust among the trading partners in B2B e-commerce. This has been achieved by compiling a comprehensive list of relevant technology tools and associated benchmark practices which can be used for making a rational choice after due examination of the environmental constraints and cost considerations. Some of the implications and operational suggestions may appear to be repetitions of what has been already said in the earlier chapters, but they have been presented in this chapter with a different perspective.

Technology Related Policies

In this study, it is hypothesized that the two technology-related policies that have the potential to influence levels of trust in B2B e-commerce are the security policy and the privacy policy. The relevant technology-related procedures examined in this study relate to (a) Regular review of policies (b) Ethical hacking; (c) Formulation of a security team; (d) Conduct various awareness and training programs; (e) Membership of security regulatory institutions; (f) Allotments of certificates from various seals of approvals; etc. The present chapter examines the relationship between levels of assurance with regard to these technology-related policies and procedures and the levels of trust in B2B e-commerce.