Trust and the don't‐want‐to‐complain bias in peer‐to‐peer platform markets

This paper addresses peer‐to‐peer (P2P) digital platform markets, often associated with the “sharing economy” or the “collaborative economy”. Such digital platforms, facilitating new purchasing channels for consumers by matching P2P supply and demand, can be considered new market places challenging the conventional markets. How are P2P platform markets evaluated by the consumers? Based on a comprehensive survey‐data material, five different P2P service markets are considered by peer buyers and the results compared to consumers’ evaluations from similar conventional service markets according to trust, comparability and consumers’ satisfaction with the transactions. Comparability seems to be one advantage for the platform markets, while trust could become a problem. Conditions for trust in P2P platform markets is particularly interesting to study because contrary to conventional markets P2P transactions cannot rely on governmental laws, regulations and security net. This trust problem has been solved by a trust‐generating rate and review system. Our data material, however, distinguishes a mechanism that we have coined as the don't‐want‐to‐complain bias. More precisely, people do not like to complain, hence buyers of P2P services often hesitate to give negative ratings when they are discontent with a service or a supplier. Therefore, positive ratings become overestimated. If consumers recognize this bias, ratings and reviews will lose credibility and no longer be considered trustworthy. Eventually, this may threaten the well‐functioning of P2P markets.     

农地整合确权促进农村劳动力就地转移了吗?——基于农业分工的调节效应

本文基于"产权界定方式——分工——农村劳动力就地转移"的分析线索,利用广东省阳山县和新丰县2232户农户问卷调查数据,采用Tobit模型和OLS模型,实证分析了农业分工调节下农地整合确权对农村劳动力就地转移的影响,并运用倾向匹配得分模型(PSM)进行内生性检验。结果发现,整合确权有利于农村劳动力就地转移,农产品市场化程度和农业社会化服务程度的提高增强了农地整合确权对农村劳动力就地转移的正向激励。因此,发挥农地确权对农村劳动力转移效应既要考虑确权进度,也要关注确权方式,注重提高农产品市场化程度和农业社会化服务程度,以此加快农村劳动力就地转移进程。     

Organizational trust in times of COVID-19: Hospitality employees’ affective responses to managers’ communication

During a crisis, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, what managers communicate to their employees can greatly impact important organizational attitudes, such as organizational trust. There is, however, very little research focusing on the mechanisms explaining how managers’ messages during a crisis can influence employees’ organizational trust. To address this gap, the current study examined the role that emotions play in developing organizational trust using a 2 (following CDC norms vs. ignoring CDC norms) by 2 (employee focus vs. bottom-line focus) between-subjects factorial experiment, with COVID-19 as the context. The results showed that a manager’s communication that followed the CDC social norms made employees feel grateful, whereas communication that ignored CDC social norms enhanced fear and anger toward the organization. The feelings of gratefulness and fear influenced organizational trust. These results provide important theoretical and practical implications for understanding organizational trust during a crisis.     

Exploring the effects of leaders’ individualized consideration in extreme contexts

Abstract

Role clarity and trust in leadership are two crucial factors supporting soldiers in coping with uncertainty and imperfect knowledge. The present study examined the effects of leaders’ individualized consideration on both factors in a sample composed of 161 paratroopers from a parachute division of the NATO Airborne Forces. Conditional process modeling revealed that (1) leaders showing individualized consideration increase followers’ role clarity and, in parallel, develop a trusting relationship with them; (2) critical upward communication and perceived workload mediated and moderated these relationships, respectively. The implications of these findings for safety research and their practical applications are outlined.     

National culture and (dis)trust in banks: Cross-country evidence

We examine to what extent a specific aspect of national culture—uncertainty avoidance—can explain cross-country variations in (dis)trust in banks. Relying on data from the World Values Survey, we find that trust in banks is lower in countries that score high for Hofstede's uncertainty avoidance index. Similarly, with Global Findex data, we find that financial exclusion due to a lack of trust in banks is high in high uncertainty avoidance cultures. These results highlight the need for a more culturally aware approach when designing consumer protection measures for the banking sector.     

Where the twain shall meet? A study of best practices to resolve retailer–supplier acrimony in post-audit recovery of trade promotion dollars

Abstract

Deductions and claims to recover trade promotions incentives through post-audit of previous years’ transactions is a highly contentious but prevalent practice in the industry. Retailers, given their low margins of operations, are motivated to seek every opportunity to obtain extra incentives from suppliers to boost their profits. They often hire third-party post-auditors to scrub through all their transactions and “deal sheets” or supplier agreements to search for potential unclaimed trade promotion dollars promised by suppliers in prior years. Third party auditors have an incentive to also make dubious claims as they are compensated on contingency fees of a percent of claims recovered. Such practices lead to acrimony between retailers and suppliers. They often have differing viewpoints and opinions about the contextual terms of the trade promotion deals itself leading to an opinion “chasm” that is sometimes difficult to bridge. The resulting tension among retailers and suppliers, along with regulatory compliance under the Sarbanes–Oxley Act, and prevailing questions on the role and practices of post-auditors, motivated this study. Conducted over a 24-month period with extensive collaboration and research discussions between the study team and responsible managers from leading US retail and manufacturing companies. The distinctive mix of academic rigor and practitioner relevance was the hallmark of this study that involved three retail summits conducted with industry participants to discuss the research method and its resultant findings. Evidence suggests that transactional discrepancies will continue to happen, despite technological advances, because of large volume of transactions and multiplicity of complex trade promotion methods in vogue in the retail world. So, as long as there are claim opportunities, post-audit recovery practices will continue, confounding the darker side of the retailer–supplier relationship. Through a multi-stage and multi-level study, and data from a variety of sources, we identify best practices in post-audit recovery and suggest ways to reduce associated conflict and improve relationship satisfaction.     

Virtual built-up land transfers embodied in China’s interregional trade

China’s vibrant interregional trade has widened the gaps between production and consumption, which transfers the pressure of built-up land resources caused by population expansion and supply/demand imbalances. This study comprehensively analyzes China’s built-up land use issues, considering the complex interregional trading network. Accordingly, the virtual built-up land transfers embodied in China’s interregional trade is illustrated, based on a multi-regional input-output analysis. In China, the national average of virtual built-up land intensity illustrates a downward trend. This demonstrates the effectiveness of the intensive built-up land utilization policies implemented in many parts of the country. Three economic regions of China with the most active trade activities (the Yangtze River Delta, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei regions, and Guangdong Province) have attracted many virtual land flows to relieve the built-up land resource pressures caused by rapid economic development. These flows have mainly derived from neighboring provinces. Considering the detail virtual built-up land transfer profiles embodied in China’s interregional trade, policymakers must collaborate to formulate differentiated policies and optimize built-up land types that combine industrial structure and trade patterns.     

Route factors influencing trust and attitude toward TV shopping

Television (TV) shopping has notably changed the way people shop today. Due to the high uncertainty and risk associated with TV shopping transactions, trust is crucial to facilitating the adoption of TV shopping. Drawing upon the elaboration likelihood model (ELM), this study examined the effect of route factors on trust and attitude toward TV shopping. While media richness, host interaction, and price fairness act as central cues, ease of payment acts as a peripheral cue. This study employed structural equation modeling, and the sample consisted of 460 TV home shoppers in Taiwan. The results indicated that trust and attitude develop through a dual route that includes a central route and peripheral route. Trust is an important mediator influencing the relationship between route factors and attitude. Moreover, user experience moderates the relationships in the model. Therefore, this study advanced the previous knowledge of the ELM in the context of TV shopping.     

How perceived trust mediates merchant's intention to use a mobile wallet technology

As mobile wallets are in constant demand and growing over the past few years, there is a need to identify views of different stakeholders involved in the process. Several studies have been done to investigate consumers' perspective intensively. On the other hand, review of perception and adoption of wallet services by other participants, in particular merchants, is often neglected. The present study aims to fill this gap. This study used an empirical model to measure merchant's intention to use a mobile wallet technology. The study includes the variables, perceived compatibility, perceived usefulness, awareness, perceived cost, perceived customer value addition and perceived trust, and aims to determine their influence on intention to use. Our study also tested the mediating effect of perceived trust on the influence of perceived usefulness to predict merchant's intention. The study includes results of the survey of 315 Indian merchants by an online survey method. We find the highest effect of perceived customer value addition on merchant's intention, followed by perceived usefulness of technology. The proposed mediation effect of perceived trust was small but significant on perceived usefulness. The results of the study can help mobile payment companies to understand factors that are relevant to increase adoption of technology in the context of merchants.