Trust in an Enterprise World: A Survey

Introduction

Recent advances in information technologies are fundamentally reshaping the modus operandi of online markets around the globe. Enterprises on intra and inter organizational level are moving from monolithic client-server architectures towards dynamic clouds of resources. Collaborative Web 2.0 technologies have become the leading edge of this rapid transformation and have set the foundation for the emergence of a new business operation and collaboration paradigm labeled as Enterprise 2.0. The term Enterprise 2.0 coined by (McAfee, 2006a) as the adoption of Web 2.0 services to improve knowledge workers’ productivity and augment the effectiveness and competence of organizations does not necessarily embrace explicit technological tools; it rather introduces a groundbreaking model for an enterprise’s knowledge structure, information management and resources sharing.

Determinants in the process of Enterprise 2.0 adoption constitute the empowerment of users, the bottom-up formulation of new processing patterns, the emergence of free-flowing collaborative engagements, and the effective guidance of possible participants (De Hertogh, Viaene & Dedene, 2011). That is, Web 2.0 initiatives call for a profound shift of dynamics from a top-down to a bottom-up business logic; business value is built collectively by knowledge workers and is not simply imposed from a small number of key stakeholders. In this context, emerging electronic transactions have become highly dynamic in their nature, while involved work and data flows are suffused over totally decentralized collaboration parties employing distinct roles in the service provision chain.

However, inherent characteristics of the 2.0 epoch described above can ignite severe trust issues among participating entities. Whereas enterprises traditionally enforce strict centralized controls regarding information access and dissemination in the context of emerging transactions, openness and collective participation attributes of Web 2.0 tend to pose significant information security and individuals’ privacy risks and thus call for immediate action. In a time where European citizens declare their concerns regarding their personal data and private life protection (Gallup Organization, 2008; European Opinion Research Group, 2011), it becomes evident that it is the level of user’s trust and confidence regarding these emerging technologies that can either boost their applicability and effectiveness or comprise a heavy obstacle in the way of their diffusion.

On an international level, companies involved in e-business transactions have reached this realization; while exposing their resources through collaboration initiatives the respective potential information security and confidentiality attack surface is widened. Ultimately, the key to the successful and beneficial adoption of Enterprise 2.0 is acquiring the appropriate balance between vast user empowerment and strict privilege control. Against this background, information security and privacy as means to instill trust into potential collaborators has become a salient issue for enterprises and their key personnel in the 2.0 era (Milojicic, 2008). Evidently, along with trustworthiness privacy and security measures bring commercial value to organizations, a value greatly enhanced by the fact that privacy is increasingly becoming a legislated area. Awareness of the public regarding personal data protection, strengthened by legislation on an international level, affects collaborators’ online behavior when involved in commercial activities (Acquisti, 2010) and thus motivates enterprises to adopt appropriate business models. In this climate, a number of keynote information security specifications and standards issued by leading institutions further intensify the organizations’ perception of trust and sensitivity about risks stemming from privacy infringement and security breaches.