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Affluence And Interpersonal Trust, Alexandra Tosone

Sociology Theses

This study explores the interplay between affluence and interpersonal trust in the United States. While existing research often focuses on the impoverished, this investigation shifts the lens to the affluent, shedding light on how affluence affects interpersonal trust dynamics.

Using qualitative methods, we conducted 15 in-depth interviews with affluent individuals and their family members. Three key findings emerged:

Trust Discrepancy: Participants claimed to trust others, but their behaviors suggested hesitancy in trust-dependent activities like sharing secrets or loaning money.

Affluent Upbringing and Lower Trust: Those raised in affluent households reported lower trust levels compared to others.

Reluctance to Discuss Finances: …

Reestablishing Organizational Stability Through Leading Resilience: Avoiding The Maelstrom Of Personal Distress Caused By An Organizational Disruption, Wallace Andrew Huey Jr

Business Administration Dissertations

The purpose of this paper is to address the increasing need for organizations to find the point of initiating resilience at a faster pace in a world that is experiencing an increase in the tempo of disruptions. Leading resilience is proposed as the path to finding the point of resilience. Leading resilience would be a tool to be pulled from the toolbox and utilized daily. It should not sit in a box with a label that states, break the seal only in an emergency.

This paper was developed from a grounded theory research study and the study was informed by …

Conversational Ai Agents: Investigating Ai-Specific Characteristics That Induce Anthropomorphism And Trust In Human-Ai Interaction, Kambiz Saffarizadeh

Computer Information Systems Dissertations

The investment in AI agents has steadily increased over the past few years, yet the adoption of these agents has been uneven. Industry reports show that the majority of people do not trust AI agents with important tasks. While the existing IS theories explain users’ trust in IT artifacts, several new studies have raised doubts about the applicability of current theories in the context of AI agents. At first glance, an AI agent might seem like any other technological artifact. However, a more in-depth assessment exposes some fundamental characteristics that make AI agents different from previous IT artifacts. The aim …

Information Asymmetry, Organizational Performance, And Private Giving: Can Performance Ratings Build Trust In Nonprofits?, Iurii Davydenko

AYSPS Dissertations

Nonprofit performance report cards, such as charity ratings, have evolved in the third sector as an attractive tool for addressing accountability concerns and improving the sector's effectiveness and efficiency. These performance monitoring services intend to increase the quality of philanthropy by helping donors allocate contributions to high-quality charities and getting organizations to improve their performance. However, we know little about how performance report cards as a policy instrument fulfill their expectations in the nonprofit sector.

This research offers a comprehensive study of charity ratings that addresses three sets of questions. First, it explores the information content of charity ratings and …

New Perceptions Of Old Constructs: Re-Examining Ease Of Movement And Trustworthiness, Ryan Currie

Managerial Sciences Dissertations

The constructs of ease of movement and trustworthiness are well-known to management researchers. Ease of movement has often been included in turnover models, and trustworthiness is an important antecedent in the integrative trust model. However, despite the familiarity with ease of movement and trustworthiness, our understanding of both constructs may be incomplete. While ease of movement is often included in turnover models, its relationship with outcome variables such as turnover and turnover intent are weak, which may call into question the validity of the construct. As for trustworthiness, prior models appear to assume that the relationship between trustworthiness and trust …

Essays On Alternative Perspectives On Cross-Border B2b Trust And Commitment, Yen-Hung Liu

Marketing Dissertations

The relationship marketing literature suggests trust and commitment are two central facets in business-to-business (B2B) relationships. However, extant studies criticize how relationship marketing literature theorizes B2B trust and commitment. This dissertation aims to draw various perspectives from disciplines of Sociology, Psychology, and Management Sciences to examine the cultivation of B2B trust and commitment to shed lights on the literature.

In Essay 1, I reported empirical findings on 202 international buyer-seller relationships. Essay 1 reveals that, within bilateral asset specificity, (1) achieving goodwill reciprocity always enhances trust, regardless of the duration contingency; (2) violating equivalence reciprocity impairs trust over the duration. …

The Effect Of Risk Management Systems On Honesty In Managerial Reporting: An Experimental Examination, Heba Abdel-Rahim

Accountancy Dissertations

An extension of the agency model of capital budgeting under private information shows that an owner’s investment in a risk management system (RMS) exacerbates the owner’s agency costs as it increases the expected slack available for managerial expropriation. This study experimentally examines the effects of an RMS on honesty in managerial reporting and the incremental effect of the owner’s willingness to invest in an RMS. Applying insights from a model of social norm activation and behavioral economics, I predict that an RMS will increase managerial honesty in reporting by increasing common expectations for truthful reporting. Furthermore, I predict that the …

Essays On The Economic Impact Of Conflict On Communities And Individuals, Melissa Rose Trussell

Economics Dissertations

This dissertation uses varying approaches to examine effects of war on communities and individuals in developing countries, specifically in Liberia, West Africa. The first essay, based on work published jointly with Robert E. Moore in 2012, uses a case study of Saclepea, Liberia, to illustrate the role that an appropriately designed local economic development (LED) plan can play in a rural African community emerging from crisis. This case demonstrates the need for the involvement and cooperation of many parties. Clear understanding of the stage of assistance helps to define the role of each entity. This case confirms that local participation …

Essays Using Experimental Methods To Answer Social Choice, Evana Afreen

Economics Dissertations

This dissertation includes three chapters that utilize experimental methods to answer questions relating to social choices. Social choice is a broad category that can incorporate an individual’s choices when it comes to charitable giving, providing a public good or creating externalities through one’s choices.

In the first chapter “To Be or Not To Be Corrupt: An Experimental Study on Bribery” I designed a modified version of the bribery game used in Abbink et al. (2002) to study whether information on the prevalence of bribery activity within the experimental environment has an effect on behavior. In addition it also tests whether …

Price Of Freedom: Improving Domestic Revenue In Developing Countries By Combining Democracy With State Effectiveness, Jean Francois Koly Onivogui

Political Science Theses

When it comes to improving tax revenues in developing countries, we do not have a clear understanding of whether it is more important to have democracy or state effectiveness. Two theories have prevailed in the literature; one is to focus on building strong states that can have financial autonomy, the other is to promote democracy with the assumption that democracy brings about economic growth. Yet, for over four decades, developing countries’ tax to GDP ratio is still desperately low. On average, developing countries ‘tax to the GDP ratio is less that half that of the OCDE countries. This article contends …

Organ Donation, Trust And Reciprocity, Danyang Li

Economics Dissertations

This dissertation consists of three chapters that focus on topics in fields of experimental economics and health economics.

The first chapter, “Do I Care if You Know I Betrayed You?” , examines how concern for others’ disutility from betrayal can affect the decision to repay trust in the trust game. We use a laboratory experiment to compare trustees’ behavior when betrayal is obfuscated to an identical monetary payoffs situation where betrayal is revealed. We find that more trustees choose to defect in our experiment when betrayal is obfuscated than when it is revealed. Our result suggests that concern for betrayal …

Ruling Out David Miller's Argument For Immigration Restrictions, Yenipher Delarosa

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The paper will describe one of David Miller’s arguments for limiting immigration by concluding that immigration is a threat to a successful democratic welfare state. There is a threat to a democratic welfare state when there is lack of trust in a heterogeneous society. Immigration contributes to heterogeneity. The paper will present flaws in Miller’s argument, which include the unacknowledged concepts of ignorance and fear that can lead to mistrust in cultural heterogeneous communities. I will then consider Miller’s response to the critiques. Lastly, I will mention some proposals for increasing trust and addressing the real issues in a multicultural …

Experiments On Redistribution, Trust, And Entitlements, Daniel T. Hall

Economics Dissertations

This dissertation comprises three essays. The unifying theme is experiments used as the empirical methodology. Each essay is an independent study, but aspects of behavior related to cooperation, trust, and entitlement are present in each essay. The first essay looks at the efficiency-equality tradeoff of increasing redistribution in a small group setting. Subjects generate a stronger sense of entitlement to their labor earnings by performing a real effort task. Subjects must trust other members of their group to work in order to keep labor a profitable activity under higher levels of redistribution. We find a significant efficiency-equality tradeoff explained by …

The Differing Effects Of Satisfaction, Trust, And Commitment On Buyer's Behavioral Loyalty: A Study Into The Buyer-Salesperson And Buyer-Selling Firm Relationship In A Business-To-Business Context, Brian Rutherford

Marketing Dissertations

This study is one of the first studies to fully address the relationship that business-to-business buyers have with both the selling firm and salesperson within an integrated model. Finding from this survey research support 14 of the 26 original hypotheses and the 2 additional linkages using structural equation modeling. This study finds that the relationship customers have with the selling firm is a stronger predictor of continuance than the relationship that the buyer has with the salesperson. While this relationship is stronger between the buyer and the selling firm, findings suggest that the salesperson can have a direct negative impact …