Trust in the Information Systems Discipline

The digitalization of today’s world has greatly advanced during the last few years and affects nearly all areas of life. The research discipline Information Systems (IS) views digitalization from multiple perspectives. On the one hand, IS is concerned with the development and functionality of technological artifacts. On the other hand, researchers in this field also investigate questions of how users perceive and actually use technological innovations. This last point brings about the question of how users deal with perceptions of risks that are inevitably connected to the use of technology (e.g., data theft, abuse of personal data). Thereby, trust research found its way into IS research since trust is widely considered to be a key factor in dealing with risk perceptions. Trust relations are commonly described as the relation between two parties: the trustor (who trusts) and the trustee (who is trusted). So far, technology has mainly been viewed as a medium through which trust can be transmitted or developed. With the emergence of quasi humans (e.g., recommendation agents), this ascription becomes more and more difficult and raises the question of whether or not a technology can be trusted. This article gives an overview of perspectives on the relations between users’ perceptions of risk, trust through and in technologies, and trust towards technology providers. We furthermore provide insights into the state of the art of trust research in the IS discipline.