WISDOM ON THE WEB: ON TRUST, INSTITUTION AND
SYMBOLISMS
A Preliminary Investigation
Emma Nuraihan Mior Ibrahim, Nor Laila Md. Noor
Faculty of Information Technology and Quantitative Sciences, Universiti Teknologi MARA
40450, Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia
Shafie Mehad
Faculty of Information Technology and Quantitative Sciences, Universiti Teknologi MARA
40450, Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia
Keywords: Trust, web mediated information environment (W-MIE), institutional theory, semiotics, institutional
symbolisms, card sorting.
Abstract: Trust in W-MIE is fairly new and risks associated with it are novel to users. Consequently, the question on
how to design technological artefact, in this case the information that is perceived trustworthy which can be
understood, rationalized and control as part of the interface design strategy is not well understood. This
becomes our primary aim of this research. We seek to explicate the role of trust from the explicit
institutional theory and semiotic paradigm to maximise the ‘goodness of fit’ for future construction of
sensitive information system within a culture or domain through the analysis of its social context, pragmatic
and semantic levels of signification. We contend that institutional design features could make the alignment
between formal and informal signs of trust to match their meanings through shared norms, assumptions,
beliefs, perceptions and actions. In this preliminary study, we used card sorting to explore on users trust
perception of institutional signs operationalized in web based information for Islamic content sharing sites.
These institutional signs are conceptualized under the four dimensions of institutional symbolisms: content
credibility, emotional assurance, brand/reputation and trusted third party. The results were cross referenced
with the initial framework for its similarities and differences.
1 INTRODUCTION
Today, consumers are not only involved in the
interpersonal or inter-organizational transaction
within the electronic exchange model but also in the
knowledge transactions and exchanges within the
information exchange mode (Forray, 2004). Trust in
information conforms to the interpersonal model of
trust. It is a social attitude towards a technological
artefact, in this case the electronic information or
document such as web page or electronic article
(Chopra and Wallace, 2002). The term web
mediated information environment (W-MIE) refers
to the activities involved in acquiring, seeking and
disseminating information on the web (E.N.M.,
Ibrahim et. al., 2007). This is due to the growing
number of websites that offer information e.g. on
health, legal, financial, religion, political, career and
relationship. The existence of these sites are some of
the evidence where consumers are extending their
web usage to present and acquire knowledge that
affect their personal lives regardless of context as
well as establishing personal and organizational
connections. Although these services facilitate
people with information, the issues concerning the
original and the copy, fraudulent behaviour, forgery
identity and deceptions (Forray, 2004) has made the
information available on the Internet rather
transparent. It brings about several risks that are
either caused by the uncertainty of using open
technological infrastructure for the information
exchange or can be explained by the conduct of
users who are involved in the transaction activity
(Krauter-Grabner and Kaluscha, 2003). Hence,
13
Nuraihan Mior Ibrahim E., Laila Md. Noor N. and Mehad S. (2008).
WISDOM ON THE WEB: ON TRUST, INSTITUTION AND SYMBOLISMS - A Preliminary Investigation.
In Proceedings of the Tenth International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems - HCI, pages 13-20
DOI: 10.5220/0001679500130020
Copyright
c
SciTePress
deliberate users trusting decision to use their own
knowledge to evaluate the information in its own
terms. This gives way to our initial assumption on
how to design an information artefact that is
perceived trustworthy within sensitive information
settings, which can be understood, rationalized and
control as part of the overall interface design
strategy. While many criteria are applicable for
evaluating informational websites through the
quality indicators (Chopra and Wallace, 2003; J.E.
Alexander and M.A. Tate, 1999) and credibility
perceptions (Fogg and Tseng 1999; McKnight and
Kacmar, 2006) however some of the works are being
criticised because the operationalization of trust was
not understandable (Krauter-Grabner and Kaluscha,
2003). On the other hand, the perspectives of trust
has been constraint and limited to the current
signifiers of trustworthiness within the context of e-
tailing specifically in the business to business (B2B)
and business to commerce (B2C) environment
(Krauter-Grabner, and Kaluscha, 2003). Much of
this work is dedicated to establish guidelines for
increasing the perceived or factors of trustworthiness
through interface elements (Wang and Emurian,
2004; Cheskin, 1999), measuring the impact level of
trust and trustworthy behaviour (Benamati, et. al.,
2006), developing technologies for encryption,
validation, authentication etc. (Pavlou and Gefen,
2004; Ratnasingam and Pavlou, 2004) and recent
interest on cross cultural communication within e-
commerce context (H. Liao et. al., 2006). However,
these studies are insufficient. We believe the
solutions would be to understand the trust
operationalization in a holistic manner by taking the
assumption of human forces, focusing on those parts
of the system directly experienced and understand
by the ordinary people. What we really need is an
integrated knowledge and understanding of two
critical values – institutional and cultural so that
designers could make the alignment between formal
and informal signs of trust between transacting
parties in order to find common heuristics and
framework in which the information domain reside.
Thus, we support the notion that trust could also be
posited in non technical mechanisms that safeguard
interaction on the web (Riegelsberger et. al., 2005).
In the literature, ‘soft’ trust dimension (Krauter-
Grabner and Kaluscha, 2006) or known as
‘intangible’ trust (French et. al., 2007; De Souza,
2005) are equally diverse field on trust formation
that takes into account on emotional and cognitive
models as well as psychological studies that
accounts for empirical, semantic and pragmatic
levels of trust semiosis (Egger, 2000). Related
studies have established that consumer perceptions
of online trust and credibility are often determined
by a user’s irrational, emotional response to site
aesthetics and surface level signs (Fogg, et. al.,
2001; Kim and Moon, 1998). The work of
Riegelsberger, et. al. (2005) elaborated on the
account for contextual and intrinsic properties in
which serves to highlight the need for designers to
better understand new ways of signalling these
properties within e-mediated environment. His
studies explored the applicability of signalling
theory to B2C e-commerce trust perceptions, an
important breakthrough in our understanding of trust
signalling as between trustor and trustee. Works of
French et. al. (2007) and De Souza (2005) points to
the need for theories that can bring together
consumers and e-service providers through the
interface and identifies semiotic engineering as a key
step in the design and evaluation of tangible and
intangible trust. Of our interests, in this paper we
extended our work in E.N.M., Ibrahim et. al. (2007)
that established a conceptual framework of
institutional symbolism and its underlying four
dimensions (content credibility, emotional
assurance, trusted third party and brand/
reputation) via explication of institutional theory
and symbolic interaction. It looked at the aspect on
the ‘soft’ trust dimensions underpinning institutional
structure driven by cognitive and affective elements
of institutionalized properties. The approach is based
on the understanding of social norms and individual
affordances. This makes it easier for human to
reason about trust online by interpreting or
perceiving the trustworthiness of
information
through the institutional ‘signalling’ standpoint
rather the knowledge or understanding of effective
IT mechanisms for self protection on the Internet.
Hence, the empirical work presented here is to
explore the pragmatic aspects of institutional
symbolism properties from the users’ perception on
trust within sensitive information context. In this
case, the operationalization of institutional trust
takes place within web based information for Islamic
content sharing sites environment. Our reasons are
twofold: first, it introduces a critical process of
meaning making and trust constructions on the level
of users, a particular set of communicators having its
own unique identities, language systems of non
verbal communication, cultural material, history and
social structure. We believe this is an audience
whose requirements online offerings attempt but fail
to address. Second, the context is relevant to HCI in
the sense that it provides understanding by capturing
non functional user requirements, especially where
ICEIS 2008 - International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems
14
these non-functional requirements are culturally or
otherwise imbued makes a significant difference to
user centric design.
2 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
2.1 From Institutional Theory to
Institutional Trust
In general, institutional structure is seen as a
domesticating system within a cultural container
governed the specific procedures and operations to
ensure the stability of an environment or situation by
imposing norms risk censure, punishment and/or
marginalization imposed and uphold by the social
actors. It provides the infrastructure for both the
skills and the tools available to help users deal with
the issues of trust in the offline environment for
example trust placed on the government, education
and legal systems in which individual interact in
their everyday’s life. Institutional theory fills a gap
by arguing that much of the environment consists of
social and cultural forces rather than the production
of resources and task-related information. It
considers the processes by which structures,
including schemas, rules, norms, and routines,
become established as authoritative guidelines for
social behaviour and to provide environment
stability (Scott, 2004). These institution elements
were transmitted by various types of carriers,
including symbolic systems, relational systems,
routines, and artefacts. However, our interests were
on the ‘symbolic interaction’ where rules, laws,
values and expectations yield the process and
structure of a system and the internalization of the
artefact used within the system. Our key challenge
of describing trust operationalization within
sensitive information context as institutional
elements lies in the understanding of what ‘social
legitimacy’ means to safeguard trustworthy
interaction between the user and the information
presented; and how designers could impose the
legitimacy. In the IS literature, the notion of
institution is encapsulate within institutional trust
(McKnight et. al., 1998), system trust (Chopra and
Wallace, 2002), reputed credibility (Fogg et. al.,
1999) and control trust (Tan and Thoen, 2000). It is
seen as relevant and appropriate to examine
communication where individual need to generalize
their trust to organization made up with people
whom they have low interdependence, low
familiarity and low continuity of interaction. This is
where the sense of a community with common
values is lacking. Such a community does not
currently exist online because of varying cultural
understanding and values (Zucker, 1986). Current
conceptualization of institutional trust is seen as a
backdrop that envelopes and safeguards interaction
based on the perception that effective IT enabled
mechanisms are in place varying in its problems and
dimensions as found in these prominent works
(Pavlou and Gefen, 2004; Tan and Thoen, 2000;
Ratnasingam and Pavlou, 2004). However, trust in
W-MIE is not simply oriented to interpersonal and
inter-firm research context where much of current
trust research applies (Gefen et. al., 2005). It is also
not a question of developing more sophisticated
technologies, rather it is ‘organizational’ (Gefen et.
al., 2005) that are characterized by the elaboration of
rules and requirements to which information
designers must conform in order to receive
‘legitimacy’ or support in managing information on
the web.
2.2 From Symbolic Interactions to
Semiotic of Trust
Symbolic interactionists believe that there is no
objective or inherent meanings embedded in a text,
but that meanings are socially constructed creations
within a particular culture or society. Based on
Bandura’s (1986) social cognitive perspective,
individuals are imbued with capabilities that define
what it is to be human and one of it is to
‘symbolize’. By drawing on their symbolic
capabilities, human can extract meaning from their
environment, construct guides for action, solve
problems cognitively, support forethoughtful courses
of action, gain new knowledge by reflective thought,
and communicate with others. Symbolizing also
enable people to store the information required to
guide future behaviours that one can anticipate the
consequences of an action without actually engaging
in it. While, symbolic interaction examines the
creation of meaning through interaction with
symbols; semiotics takes that examination to the
level of science that relates to the ‘fundaments of
information’ (Stamper, 1995). Semiotics maintains
that the construction of meanings depends in part, on
the context of the sign in relation to the interpreter
and the culture in which both are situated. Semiotic
does not recognize that any particular sign is truly
‘universal’, rather it depends on the context: both
local and global. This implies the information is
mediated by signs and their meanings would vary in
different culture which stands to somebody for
something; in some respect or capacity; in some
WISDOM ON THE WEB: ON TRUST, INSTITUTION AND SYMBOLISMS - A Preliminary Investigation
15
community or social context (Stamper, 1995). This
allow signs to be treated as governing its own
principles, the context it emit and receive and the
determinant of their content where applicable. For
example, here we see a sign (a clock), which “is
essentially “incomplete” until it has an “interpretant”
or a context that an agent (or interpreter) creates
meaning or content from the sign (embedded in its
interpretant), see Figure 1.
Figure 1: Sign Meaning Making Process.
The culture and social context is seen to have some
influence on the interpreter to correspond with the
sign meaning and thus influence the creation of the
meaning to that particular sign. It can be said that
the sign possess its own objective and maintain its
own intrinsic value of trustworthiness within its
context. Here, knowledge evolves through the
interpretation and the simultaneous integration of
information and context between the interpretant and
the sign is gained by or developed through a
multitude of selected, assessed and critically
reviewed information, a stimulus derives from the
cognitive and affective assessment of trust
indicators. This leads to an understanding of trust as
a mental structure consisting of the subjective and
objective perceptions that individual hold and accept
as true. In this sense, trust in information is a
semiosis process concerning the ability of the user to
perceive signs via rational or irrational responses
that are contextually bound.
3 INSTITUTIONAL
SYMBOLISMS
In order to account for the semiosis process of trust
in information where signification render the users
complex cognitive and affective comprehension, the
notion of institution is encapsulate within a system
of representation and symbols defined as
institutional symbolisms. Institutional symbolisms is
a visible, physical manifestation of the institutional
characteristics, behaviour and values represented by
trust marks; signs that depict and present connoted
message of some ‘assurance’ which signified under
these four dimensions and its underlying properties
(E.N.M., Ibrahim et. al., 2007), see Table 1. This
assurance implies the sense of ‘legitimacy’ that
safeguards the overall impersonal structures and
situations on the web in which the information
domain reside. It implies that the symbols carry its
own disposition and meaning, the trust warranting
properties manifested via textually or graphically
presented on the website. In this sense, institutional
symbolisms are seen as a form of social trust where
trust is initiated from its social mechanism,
behaviour and values through the means of symbolic
representation.
Table 1: The Framework of Institutional Symbolisms
Trust Inducing Features (adapted from E.N.M., Ibrahim et.
al., 2007).
Dimensions Values Measurements
Trust marks that
reflect third party
assurance or seals
of approval.
A belief that it will
perform a particular
action, to monitor or to
control that certain acts
and behavior is warranted.
Trust marks that symbolized:
1. Protecting privacy
2. Providing security
3. Demonstrating consumer
satisfaction
4. Providing reliability
5. Providing assurance
or guarantee.
Trust marks that
reflect credibility
of the web
content
A belief that it has the
ability and competency to
carry out the obligations.
Trust marks that symbolized:
1. Competence (knowledge,
expertise and skill).
2. Reliability (accuracy,
currency, coverage and
believability).
3. Predictability (stability of
information).
Trust marks that
evoke emotional
assurance or
security.
A belief that it will
provide a sense of comfort
that is reflective,
thoughtful and careful.
Trust marks that symbolized:
1. Benevolence (goodwill and
objectivity)
2. Honesty (validity and,
openness).
3. Integrity (fiduciary
obligations).
Trust marks that
reflect
trustworthy
expectations
derived from the
message.
A belief that it signifies
positive or prominent
identities and values.
Trust marks that symbolized:
1. Reputation
- Offline reputation
2. Brand
- Brand Image
- Brand Personality
4 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
4.1 Card Sorting Technique
Card sorting is one of the methods used in
psychology research to uncover cognition
representation that used indirect approach to probe
non-functional quality aspects of websites (French
et. al., 2007). It is an empirical investigative
technique conceived within the field of personal
construct theory developed originally by Kelly
(1955). The theory posits the ability of human
beings to self-describe their own categorization(s)
that impart the individual cognition and meaning
making process with a high reliability and validity.
This is a knowledge elicitation technique commonly
Agent (interpreter)
Meaning
Culture/SocietyCulture/Society
Object (Sign)
Representation
T
i
m
e
.
.
.
C
l
o
c
k
.
.
.
Context
Knowledge (intrinsic value)
Expression (cognitve/emotional perceptions)
ICEIS 2008 - International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems
16
used in the human factors field to gain insight into
the mental models of users (Faiks and Hyland,
2000). More specifically, the approach is intended to
reveal the so called tacit or semi-tacit knowledge
especially when the subject is unable to articulate
using a direct verbal questioning approach. In
addition, it has proven to be a highly effective and
valuable method for gathering user input especially
prior to total system design (Faiks and Hyland,
2000) or low fidelity artefact of computer based
signs at the website level (De Souza, 2005). The
focus of this study is to uncover how trustworthy
information is perceived. Our empirical
investigations used the ‘closed card sorting’
technique to probe the users trust perceptions of
institutional signs embedded within sensitive
information web based content rather than trust per
se as the subjects are not exposed to risk. This
includes first encounters prior brand exposure or
simply first encounters with the brand. This is
because a typical user will include those with prior
brand knowledge as well as those who are simply
encountering the site through online search and
competitor inspection (Nyshadham and Ugbaja,
2006). As we already have a pre-defined set of
categories, in this study we want to learn how users
sort institutional elements into each category. These
elements are assumed to have some semantic
meaning that captures the user’s cognitive structure.
The results will allow us either to add new content
or eliminating existing content to an existing
structure. Briefly, in this method, we first identified
a set of institutional objects based on prior literature
within trust e-mediated studies. We extended the
framework of institutional symbolisms trust
inducing features and came up with a total of 34
elements (see Table 2) which contains a preliminary
list of institutional objects derived from synthesizes
of existing literatures.
4.2 Context of Study
For the operationalization of the institutional
dimensions, web based information for Islamic
content sharing sites were chosen. In this research,
we refer the Islamic content sharing sites as websites
that highlight information, knowledge and services,
be it commercial or entertainment in nature that
reflect Islamic ideologies, content, norms or values.
We believe the Islamic context offer interesting view
on the investigation of this institutional phenomenon
as Islamic principles rely much on the legitimacy
governed by its cultural cognitive, normative and
regulative elements, both formal and informal. It is
somewhat consistent with the mechanisms of
supporting and restricting social behaviour as the
key ingredients of institutional theoretical
foundation. In this study, the subjects were presented
with two static images of e-halal homepages from
Malaysia and Singapore (see Figure 2 and 3). These
homepages are basically the official websites that
disseminate information pertaining to halal products
and services in its respective countries. The subjects
were asked to think about any trust elements that
come across into their mind when browsing or
searching for halal information on the web. Subjects
are given cards showing the institutional elements
with an established initial set of primary groups.
Then they are asked to place cards into these pre-
established primary groups based on their own
understanding and perception. Some of these
elements refer to the presence or absence on both the
websites.
Figure 2: Islamic Religious Council of Singapore
(www.muis.gov.sg/cms/index.aspx).
Figure 3: Department of Islamic Development Malaysia
(www.halaljakim.gov.my).
4.3 Participants
A focus group of 15 users participated in this study.
According to Nielsen (2004), testing 15 users for
card sorting are good enough for most practical
purposes. Our participants consist of 10 females and
5 males between the ages of 25-40, having at least a
bachelor degree qualification and have participated
in online transaction activities for at least 2 years. In
this study, we used subjects that have previous
experiences in online transaction activities because
they would already have well developed schema for
offline risks (Nyshadham and Ugbaja, 2006). We
also preferred to have educated people because it is
to be said more likely to have some experiences with
technology (Nyshadham and Ugbaja, 2006).
WISDOM ON THE WEB: ON TRUST, INSTITUTION AND SYMBOLISMS - A Preliminary Investigation
17
5 RESULTS OVERVIEW
Table 2: Summary of Card Sorting Analysis.
Abbreviations: CC (Content Credibility), BR (Brand and Reputation), EA (Emotional Assurance), TTP (Trusted Third Party)
From Table 2, we could summarized that content
credibility dimension is represented by the following
elements: content authorships, site navigation, links,
language, accuracy, currency, attributions, site
disclosure, design and layout, content believability,
past experiences, information legitimacy and content
reliability. It can be observed that the element of
accuracy and content believability scored higher
with (M=80). We obtained 34% of average cards
agreement compare to the current category. While,
elements of organizational values, organization’s
positive intentions, upfront disclosure of customer
relationships, site fulfilment and security policies
represented the emotional assurance dimension. In
this category we obtained only 22% of average card
agreement from the participants and organizational
values (M=53) were seen as the most important
element of emotional assurance. For trusted third
party dimension, elements of site professionalism,
site privacy and confidentiality, demonstrating
users’ satisfaction, providing third party security,
providing third party privacy, disclosed policies and
practices and content reliability were selected under
this category. We achieved only 27% of average
No Institutional Elements Mean Card Placement
%
User’s Category Current
Category
Average Card
Agreement %
1 Organization Values 0.53 50 EA CC
34
2 Site Purpose 0.33 45 BR CC
3 Domain Name 0.47 64 BR CC
4 Organization Trademarks 0.47 50 BR CC
5 Content Authorships 0.33 29 CC CC
6 Sources 0.40 46 BR CC
7 Site Navigation 0.47 54 CC CC
8 Links 0.40 55 CC CC
9 Language 0.40 55 CC CC
10 Accuracy 0.80 80 CC CC
11 Currency 0.73 73 CC CC
12 Past Experiences 0.27/ 0.27 33 CC & BR CC
13 Attributions 0.60 64 CC CC
14 Site Disclosure 0.33 43 CC CC
15 Design and Layout 0.40 50 CC CC
16 Content Believability 0.80 86 CC CC
17 Organization Social Role and Functions 0.40 54 BR CC
18 Organization Positive Intentions 0.40 46 EA EA
22
19 Site Professionalism 0.47/ 0.47 31 BR & TTP EA
20 Site Privacy and Confidentiality 0.47 47 TTP EA
21 Information Legitimacy 0.33 43 CC EA
22 Upfront Disclosure of Customer Relationships 0.40 54 EA EA
23 Site Fulfilment 0.33 38 EA EA
24 Security Policies 0.47 54 EA EA
25 Feedback Mechanisms 0.20 31 BR EA
26 Demonstrating Users Satisfaction 0.47 58 TTP TTP
27
27 Provide Third Party Security 0.60 77 TTP TTP
28 Provide Third Party Privacy 0.80 80 TTP TTP
29 Disclosed Policies and Practices 0.67 67 TTP TTP
30 Content Reliability 0.47/ 0.47 43 CC & TTP TTP
31 Perceived Organization’s Ability 0.60 69 BR BR
33
32 Brand Image 0.80 87 BR BR
33 Brand Personality 0.67 85 BR BR
34 Offline Reputation 0.67 77 BR BR
ICEIS 2008 - International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems
18
card agreement under this category. In addition, it is
shown that, providing third party assurance for
privacy related information (M= 80) is the highest
concern among other elements appeared under
trusted third party dimension. The result was
somewhat consistent with the rising concerns
regarding privacy protection for both individual and
organization on content and information
dissemination within e-mediated services (Egger,
2000; Chopra and Wallace, 2002; Krauter-Grabner
and Kaluscha, 2006) and further heightened in the
information environment (Forray, 2004). Under the
brand/reputation dimension, elements of site
purpose, domain name, organization trademarks,
sources, past experiences, organization social role
and functions, site professionalism, feedback
mechanisms, perceived organization’s ability, brand
image, brand personality and offline reputation were
selected by the participants to represent this
category. We obtained 33% of average card
agreement within this category. Brand image
(M=80) were seen as the most important element
followed by brand personality and offline reputation
(M=67). This emphasizes that when a person
perceives the brand name or symbol; it is the
interplay of the associations of the branded object
that manifests as image constructed by the user
which in turn influence the reputation of an
organization in general. Brand image bears great
potentialities to strengthen trust (Einwiller, 2003).
An interesting observation, it can be seen that some
elements appeared in two categories. Past
experiences appeared both under brand/reputation
and content credibility. This is probably because
past experiences with an organization is seen as
important facilitator that gives reputations the power
to reduce uncertainty and serve as a means to
engender trust. This implies that knowing a good
reputation of a trustee, in this case the information
provider reduces the trustor’s uncertainty and
enhances his or her positive expectation. In addition,
content reliability appeared under both trusted third
party and content credibility dimensions, given
(M=0.47). This is probably due to user’s confidence
exists because they expect the information to be
reliable and valid. Hence, effective action to increase
the level of confidence in the information must also
include assurance and monitoring by the third party.
Site professionalism (M=0.47) also appeared in two
categories, trusted third party and brand/ reputation.
This might indicate that the appearance of trusted
third party assurance symbolize a site
professionalism and in turn increase the level of its
reputation.
6 CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE
WORK
As stated earlier the objective of this research is to
uncover the user’s trust perception on institutional
dimensions and its underlying properties within
sensitive information context. The result of this
research yields preliminary empirical evidence that
trust in information within sensitive domain resulted
on the concern of the content credibility and the
familiarity with the brand/reputation of the trustee.
However, emotional assurance seems to be less
significant for assessing the trustworthiness of
information when comes to sensitive content. It did
not support the idea that emotionally charged topics
such as related to one’s religion may induced the
affective response of the users (Chopra and Wallace,
2002). Pending further analysis should explore on
the semantic meaning represented by these
institutional dimensions and its underlying
properties to reach a conclusive finding, as these
dimensions are perceived and interpreted differently
by different subjects. Hence, further analysis can
potentially reveal new dimensions. However, some
of the limitations need to be highlighted. Due to the
huge population of the Muslims with different ethnic
groups, the research is unable to capture the
perceptions of trust of the general order. In addition,
what we present here are the ‘possible dimensions’
of trust that exist amongst Islamic communities and
not as something definitive. Nevertheless, we
contend that designing information artefact should
consider cultural aspect in which the information
domain resides because the culture within which a
person operates would have shaped his or her
perception of trust. Hence, creating the right
appearances on the web by imposing online
legitimacy, appropriate communication styles and
languages are some of the integral issues for the
designers to consider in developing information
systems for sensitive information context.
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