Conclusions
This research has identified how current dimensions of interpersonal- and technologybased trust within the extant literature may be inappropriate within some IoT techno-service contexts (e.g. Morgan and Hunt, 1994; Bapna et al., forthcoming). Additionally, insights provided have been into the dimensionality of trust in circumstances where service users engage not with individual actors within a complex network but with a holistic techno-service system. The trust dimensions identified (constancy, understandability/familiarity, performance and system-wide trust) are broader in nature than previous findings within other contexts. However, in interpreting this, it is posited that IoT techno-service system users may, to varying degrees, have a limited perspective of the complexity of the system and the entities and processes it encompasses. Consequently, many of the specific interactions of and interdependencies between actors and objects described in the scenarios are beyond the cognition of potential users. This is unsurprising when one considers the IoT potentially represents thousands of simultaneous interactions between “things” (some human, some machine-based, and others being machines assuming human behaviours). In such circumstances, trust becomes confidence in or faith that a system as a whole will perform appropriately. For those that engage in these contexts, it is possible that socio-technological systems facilitate participatory access to knowledge, reflecting Mumford’s (2006) point that “voluntary simplicity” leads to increased quality of life.
