Managing trust - A design theory and design principles

Technological developments along with socio-economical changes (e.g., COVID-19) have increased the trust intensity of social and business interactions and have created new trust concerns. On the other hand, the affordances of new technologies facilitate new trust opportunities. Trust is one of the well-cited and popular research areas in Information Systems research. However, despite the depth and breadth of knowledge on trust and related concepts, it remains an elusive concept in practice. We know more about what trust is than how to deal with it. Accordingly, in the absence of a prescriptive trust theory, drawing on existing trust literature and the expertise of senior stakeholders from different companies, we develop a design theory for trust, proposing complementary design principles to build trust into the processes of customers’ interaction with a company, considering contemporary trust concerns and leveraging the opportunities provided by new technologies.