Basics of qualitative research: Grounded theory procedures and techniques

Evidence suggests that consumers often hesitate to transact with Web-based vendors because of uncertainty about vendor behavior or the perceived risk of having personal information stolen by hackers. Trust plays a central role in helping consumers overcome perceptions of risk and insecurity. Trust makes consumers comfortable sharing personal information, making purchases, and acting on Web vendor advice--behaviors essential to widespread adoption of e-commerce. Therefore, trust is critical to both researchers and practitioners. Prior research on e-commerce trust has used diverse, incomplete, and inconsistent definitions of trust, making it difficult to compare results across studies. This paper contributes by proposing and validating measures for a multidisciplinary, multidimensional model of trust in e-commerce. The model includes four high-level constructs--disposition to trust, institution-based trust, trusting beliefs, and trusting intentions--which are further delineated into 16 measurable, literature-grounded subconstructs. The psychometric properties of the measures are demonstrated through use of a hypothetical, legal advice Web site. The results show that trust is indeed a multidimensional concept. Proposed relationships among the trust constructs are tested (for internal nomological validity), as are relationships between the trust constructs and three other e-commerce constructs (for external nomological validity)--Web experience, personal innovativeness, and Web site quality. Suggestions for future research as well as implications for practice are discussed.

Developing and Validating Trust Measures for e-Commerce: An Integrative Typology

Global environmental change and sustainability science increasingly recognize the need to address the consequences of changes taking place in the structure and function of the biosphere. These changes raise questions such as: Who and what are vulnerable to the multiple environmental changes underway, and where? Research demonstrates that vulnerability is registered not by exposure to hazards (perturbations and stresses) alone but also resides in the sensitivity and resilience of the system experiencing such hazards. This recognition requires revisions and enlargements in the basic design of vulnerability assessments, including the capacity to treat coupled human–environment systems and those linkages within and without the systems that affect their vulnerability. A vulnerability framework for the assessment of coupled human–environment systems is presented.

/pdf/a-framework-for-vulnerability-analysis-in-sustainability-4hx68cqpdr.pdf

A framework for vulnerability analysis in sustainability science

Stakeholder participation for environmental management: A literature review

Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy

It is now widely accepted that members of the public should be involved in environmental decision-making. This has inspired many to search for principles that characterize good public participation processes. In this paper we report on a study that identifies discourses about what defines a good process. Our case study was a forest planning process in northern New England and New York. We employed Q methodology to learn how participants characterize a good process differently, by selecting, defining, and privileging different principles. Five discourses, or perspectives, about good process emerged from our study. One perspective emphasizes that a good process acquires and maintains popular legitimacy. A second sees a good process as one that facilitates an ideological discussion. A third focuses on the fairness of the process. A fourth perspective conceptualizes participatory processes as a power struggle—in this instance a power play between local landowning interests and outsiders. A fifth perspective highlights the need for leadership and compromise. Dramatic differences among these views suggest an important challenge for those responsible for designing and carrying out public participation processes. Conflicts may emerge about process designs because people disagree about what is good in specific contexts.

What Is a Good Public Participation Process? Five Perspectives from the Public

Conflicts regarding the siting of hazardous facilities in the U.S. have often led to an impasse due to numerous problems, particularly including social distrust. To address this situation, this article proposes a multidimensional conception of trust, including cognitive, emotional, and behavioral aspects, and involving themes of expectations about others, subjective perceptions of situations, and awareness of taking risks. Four key dimensions of trust are perceptions of commitment, competence, caring, and predictability. Distrust arises from violations of expectations that people have in social relations. Research has shown a broad loss of trust in leaders and in major social institutions in the U.S. since the 1960s, together with growing public concern over health, safety, and environmental protection. These trends combine to make hazardous-facility siting highly controversial. This article recommends key steps in risk communication and hazardous-facility siting that are aimed at dealing as effectively as possible with social distrust.

Social Distrust as a Factor in Siting Hazardous Facilities and Communicating Risks

This article reports progress on developing a theory of public participation that may prove useful to administrative bodies. The authors review a theory of public participation based on Habermas’s ...

Fairness and Competence in Citizen Participation: Theoretical Reflections from a Case Study

Knowing how people think about public participation processes and knowing what people want from these processes is essential to crafting a legitimate and effective process and delivering a program that is widely viewed as meaningful and successful. This article reports on research to investigate the nature of diversity among participants’ perceptions of what is the most appropriate public participation process for environmental assessment and decision making in 10 different cases. Results show that there are clearly distinct perspectives on what an appropriate public participation process should be. We identified four perspectives: Science-Centered Stakeholder Consultation, Egalitarian Deliberation, Efficient Cooperation, and Informed Collaboration. The literature on public participation tends to presume that there are clear and universal criteria on how to “do” public participation correctly or that context is the critical factor. This study has revealed that even within a specific assessment or decision-making effort, there may be different perspectives about what is viewed as appropriate, which poses a challenge for both theorists and practitioners. Among the active participants in these 10 case studies, we found limited agreement and strong differences of opinions for what is a good process. Points of consensus across these cases are that good processes reach out to all stakeholders, share information openly and readily, engage people in meaningful interaction, and attempt to satisfy multiple interest positions. Differences appeared about how strongly to emphasize science and information, how much leadership and direction the process needs, what is the proper behavior of participants, how to tackle issues of power and trust, and what are the outcome-related goals of the process. These results challenge researchers and practitioners to consider the diversity of participant needs in addition to the broad context when conceptualizing or carrying out participatory processes.

/pdf/four-perspectives-on-public-participation-process-in-21cdefyh27.pdf

Four Perspectives on Public Participation Process in Environmental Assessment and Decision Making: Combined Results from 10 Case Studies

It is now widely accepted that members of the public should be involved in environmental decision-making. Many researchers have attempted to define process and outcome principles for "good" public participation. The emphasis of this study is on the process. We asked participants in a forest policymaking process about their ideas of "good" process. We used an approach based on the qualitative method of grounded theory to inductively identify principles. Seven categories of principles emerged from the analysis: access to the process, power to influence process and outcomes, access to information, structural characteristics to promote constructive interactions, facilitation of constructive personal behaviors, adequate analysis, and enabling of future processes. We elaborate and discuss the categories and variations among the participants. The results provide a detailed and intriguing picture of how the people in our case study think about participation.

Seth Tuler

Papers

What Is a Good Public Participation Process? Five Perspectives from the Public

Social Distrust as a Factor in Siting Hazardous Facilities and Communicating Risks

Fairness and Competence in Citizen Participation: Theoretical Reflections from a Case Study

Four Perspectives on Public Participation Process in Environmental Assessment and Decision Making: Combined Results from 10 Case Studies

Voices from the Forest: What Participants Expect of a Public Participation Process