5.1 Key Terms and Introduction to Module 5

• Trust is a complex concept which can be defined as a firm belief or confidence in the reliability, integrity, and ability of a person, institution, system, or process (O’Hara, 2012, p. 19).
• It is particularly important in business transactions as it serves like the foundation that makes people feel confident that the other party will do what they say and creates more successful exchanges.
• Trust in the business-consumer relationship is foundational, fostering security that the business will act with integrity, provide reliable products or services, and prioritize the customer's interests (Pennington et al., 2003).

• In information systems (IS) research, the notion of a “human-to-technology trust relationship” was developed (Lankton, McKnight, & Tripp, 2015, p. 882). 
• Human treating computers as a social actor (Fussell et al., 2008)
• This kind of trust is also called human-like trust in technology (Lankton et al., 2015). 
• Information systems (IS) research describe the trustworthiness of IT artifacts (Benbasat and Wang, 2005)
• The “computers-as-a-social actor” (CSA) paradigm is based on the observation that people view computers as teammates and assign them personality traits like helpfulness or dominance (Reeves & Nass, 1996).
• Users perceive IT artifacts as “social actors” in terms of virtual providers possessing human character traits (Benbasat and Wang, 2005).

As a result, it could be even harder to build trust with blockchain because users need to trust the technology as well as their business partners and given the fact that it is a new unfamiliar technology, there’s a chance of it being more complicated.

A blockchain consists of several features that can induce trust — however not complete trust.