Trust building in agri-food markets with computer-mediated business relationships

Trust in CMBR Difficulties Purpose of this work Not face-to-face Cannot inspect product Purpose of this work Identify ‘trust drivers’ Transfer to CMBR in agri-food

Approach Listen to focus group discussion Perform analysis on words used Try to identify Relationships Hierarchies

Step 1 Focus group Experts in agri-food & ICT 2.5 hours

Step 2 Analysis of meeting records Look for semantic categories (SC) Map onto 2d space SC are close if they show up in the same speeches

Step 3 Cluster these 2d SC points 8 resulting clusters; ex: Trustworthiness of ICT tools Integrity of partner Certification of partner Also referred to as ‘elements’ Minus 1 cluster, ‘specificity of context’

Step 4 Group 7 elements into 3 ‘aspects’ Label the ‘dimension’ of each, either: Emotional Cognitive (rational)

Step 5 Integrate with ‘other information and elements taken from the literature’ Input of focus group participants Relative importance of elements

Discussion Why not just ask the experts? Contribution? Meaningfulness of calculations Contribution? Is the hierarchy useful? How should trust be addressed?