Rethinking Trust and Trustworthiness – A Socio-Technical Calibration Perspective

Abstract

Trust is one of the most important factors driving the adoption and use of information systems (IS). Consequently, numerous IS scholars studied different kinds of trust, their nuanced antecedents and effects, and how these insights can be used for designing more trustworthy IS. Yet, when studying trust, I argue that IS scholars take an implicit assumption that should be challenged. This implicit assumption is that higher levels of trust are generally desirable. This assumption is reflected by studies focusing on „building“ or „repairing“ trust, and empirical models that mostly emphasize relationships between antecedents of trust and the effects of trust on downstream variables that follow a „the more the better“ logic. I argue that instead of continuing to follow this logic, IS researchers can learn from the HCI discipline’s approach that emphasizes that trust needs to be calibrated ensuring appropriate trust and reliance to avoid the negative effects technology disuse and misuse. Additionally, I argue that the sociotechnical perspective of IS research can also enrich current research on trust calibration by highlighting the importance of trust calibration beyond the predominant perspective on technical calibration. Consequently, IS researchers should work towards developing a sociotechnical calibration perspective on trust to ensure the trustworthy design of trustworthy future IS.

Bio

Matthias Söllner is Full Professor of Information Systems and Systems Engineering and Director of the interdisciplinary Research Center for IS Design (ITeG) at University of Kassel. His research focuses on trust in and acceptance of information systems, digital innovations in learning, and hybrid intelligence. His research has been published by journals such as MIS Quarterly (MISQ, Research Curation), Information Systems Research (ISR), Journal of Management Information Systems (JMIS), Journal of the Association for Information Systems (JAIS), Journal of Information Technology (JIT), European Journal of Information Systems (EJIS), Computers & Education (C&E) and Business & Information Systems Engineering (BISE), and is regularly presented at conferences such as the International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS), the European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS), the Academy of Management Annual Meeting, and the ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI). Matthias has also received several awards for his research, teaching, and service, including the AIS Early Career Award 2020, ACM CHI Honorable Mention Awards in 2020 and 2021, as well as the AIS Innovation in Teaching Award 2022.