Academic literature on the topic 'Source credibility theory'

Grounded on persuasive communications theory, the impact of source credibility and message variation on response behaviour towards a mail survey on a sample of the general public are examined. An experimental design comprising three levels (high, medium and low) of these variables is employed. Source credibility and the interaction of message variation (i.e. usefulness of the study) and source credibility have a significant impact on response rate. Overemphasising the usefulness of a study is found to be counterproductive. For sources that are arguably average or lower in credibility, a strongly worded message (in terms of usefulness) was less effective than more modest objectives.

This study examines the effect of endorsers' source credibility on emotion towards youtube's advertisement. We analyze the impact of social media influencer and celebrity's credibility on emotional responses of respondents, namely pleasure and arousal. The data were collected by a survey through google form related to source credibility and S-O-R theory. Three hundred and eighty-five people joined the survey distributed via Google Form. The amount of respondent is 385 people using Lemeshow formula with a Margin of Error 5% and purposive sampling technique. The study used Multivariate Regression Analysis and Independent Sample T-Test. Findings showed that there is a significant effect of social media influencer and celebrity's credibility to emotional pleasure and arousal towards the advertisement. It is also found that social media influencer's expertise influenced stronger on pleasure and arousal than attractiveness and trustworthiness. In the other hand, celebrity's trustworthiness has a stronger impact on emotion pleasure and arousal than attractiveness and expertise. We suggested that future research can also analyze purchase intention because some previous studies stated that emotional response could predict purchase intention. Key Word: source credibility, celebrity, social media influencer, emotional responses

Other-generated information about specific targets available online reduces third parties’ uncertainty of strangers. Yet only information perceived as credible can shape their impressions. This study examines how impressions form after exposure to online recommendations, a type of other-generated information via LinkedIn, through credibility assessment of these recommendations. The source–target relationship and recommendation specificity were manipulated in a 2 × 2 between-subjects experiment ( N = 213). Main effects for both independent variables were found. Perceived manipulation likelihood and perceived credibility of recommendation mediated the impact of the source–target relationship on impressions. Additionally, perceived familiarity with the target and perceived credibility of recommendation mediated the impact of recommendation specificity on impressions. This study extends warranting theory and highlights the impact of new communication technology on credibility assessment of online information and impression formation.

Airlines have introduced voluntary carbon offsetting (VCO) products to encourage consumers to mitigate emissions from their air travel. However, literature has suggested a low VCO adoption partly because of low perceived credibility. This study investigates the impact of source credibility (expertise and trustworthiness) on air travelers’ purchase intention for aviation VCO products. This is the first study to conceptualize and test the influence of source credibility on air travelers’ carbon offsetting behavior using communication theory. Source credibility of a message directly influences air travelers’ purchase intention of aviation VCO products in a positive way. Examining source credibility components shows that trustworthiness has a significant positive impact on purchase intention, while the impact of expertise is not significant. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed, which highlight the importance of improving source credibility, and trustworthiness in particular, to encourage consumers to mitigate air travel emissions.

PurposeIn spite of the increasing organic and interactive marketing activities over social media, a general understanding of the source credibility of voluntary user-generated content (UGC) is still limited. In line with the social identity theory, this paper examines the effects of consumers' perceived source credibility of UGC in YouTube videos on their attitudes and behavioral intentions. Additionally, source homophily theory is included to predict the antecedent of source credibility.Design/methodology/approachThree hundred and seventy two Generation Y respondents were interviewed using snowball sampling. Data were analyzed with component-based structural equation modeling technique of partial least squares-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).FindingsFindings confirmed that perceived source credibility indirectly affects purchase intention (PI) and electronic word-of-mouth via attitude toward UGC. Besides, perceived source credibility mediates the effect of perceived source homophily on attitude toward UGC.Practical implicationsSince today's consumers have begun to trust and rely more on UGC than company-generated content on social media when making purchase decisions, companies may reconsider democratizing certain aspects of their branding strategies. Firms may fine-tune their marketing communication budgets – not only just by sponsoring public figures and celebrities but also by nurturing coproductive engagements with independent content creators who are ordinary consumers. Endowed with their imposing credibility, these micro-influencers and prosumers have high potentials to be uplifted to brand ambassadors.Originality/valueWhile consumers' purchase outcome can be measured easily using metrics and analytics, the roles of source homophily in stages leading up to the purchase is still elusive. Drawing on the rich theoretical basis of source homophily may help researchers to understand not only how credibility and attitude are related to PI but also how this nexus generates positive word of mouth among UGC followers within the social media circles.

The present research addresses the issue of source credibility of social media influencers from the perspective of users. Social media influencers are defined as online personalities with a large number of followers, across one or several social media platforms. They have a complex role, being content creators, online opinion leaders, and even entrepreneurs. Influencer marketing is becoming a more and more relevant component of current advertising campaigns worldwide. A consistent body of literature has underlined the importance of source credibility for the effectiveness of advertising. Recent researches on Source Credibility Theory (Teng et al, 2014; Djafarova & Rushworth, 2016; Munnukka et al 2016; Lou &Yuan, 2018) have stressed the influence of trustworthiness, expertise, similarity and attractiveness as elements of source credibility on perceived trust in influencer marketing. In order to gain better insights, we chose to conduct qualitative research that can allow us an in-depth perspective on the phenomenon of source credibility in influencer marketing. We carried out four group discussions in Germany and five in Romania. We explored the differences and similarities regarding the users’ perception of the perceived credibility of social media influencers.

PurposeEffective communication of information is central to integrated care systems (ICS), particularly between providers and care-consumers. Drawing on communication theory, this paper aims to investigate whether and why source effects increase positive evaluations of health-related messages among care-consumers.Design/methodology/approachA preliminary online survey (N = 525) establishes the discriminant validity of the measures used in the main experimental study. The main study (N = 116) examines whether identical messages disclosed to be created by different sources (i.e. institutional, care-consumer, collaborative) lead to different message evaluations, and whether source credibility and similarity, and message authenticity, explain this process.FindingsIn comparison to any other source, messages disclosed to be co-created are evaluated more positively by care-consumers. This effect occurs through a parallel serial mediation carried over by perceptions of source credibility and source similarity (parallel, first serial-level mediators) and message authenticity (second serial-level mediator).Practical implicationsThe findings offer guidelines for leveraging source effects in ICS communication strategies, signaling how collaborative message sources increase the favorableness of health message evaluations.Originality/valueThis research demonstrates the efficacy of drawing on marketing communication theory to build ICS communication capacity by showing how re-configuring the declared source of informational content can increase positive evaluations of health-related messages. In so doing, this research extends existing literature on message authenticity by demonstrating its key underlying role in affecting message evaluations.

Attracting more consumers through mobile online platforms has become the most important thing for luxury brands. However, few studies have explored how cultural context, as exemplified by face consciousness and source credibility, influences the online luxury consumption and promotion of mobile users. To fill that research gap, this study constructed a research model of Chinese consumers to examine the effect of source credibility on the online luxury purchase and recommendation intentions of mobile consumers, and the moderating effects of face consciousness were examined. A structural equation model was also employed in our study. Furthermore, a field survey with 168 mobile online shopping customers was conducted to test the research model and hypotheses. The empirical results confirm the following: (1) the source credibility of online reviews had a positive effect on the online luxury purchase intentions of mobile customers but increased their intention to recommend the shopping site even more in a luxury environment; (2) face consciousness had a negative moderating effect between source credibility and the online luxury purchase intention of mobile consumers; and (3) face consciousness had a negative moderating effect between source credibility and the luxury recommendation intention of mobile consumers. The implications for theory and practice and suggestions for future research were also discussed.

This article seeks to examine the relationships among source credibility, message plausibility, message type (rumor or rumor correction) and retransmission of tweets in a rumoring situation. From a total of 5,885 tweets related to the rumored death of the founding father of Singapore Lee Kuan Yew, 357 original tweets without an “RT” prefix were selected and analyzed using negative binomial regression analysis. The results show that source credibility and message plausibility are correlated with retransmission. Also, rumor correction tweets are retweeted more than rumor tweets. Moreover, message type moderates the relationship between source credibility and retransmission as well as that between message plausibility and retransmission. By highlighting some implications for theory and practice, this article concludes with some limitations and suggestions for further research.

In the first chapter we investigate the strategy of exchange rate pegging as a solution to the lack of credibility of domestic monetary policy in the context of the European Monetary System (EMS). Existing theoretical models cannot explain the following features of the EMS and its crisis in 1992: its progressive hardening from 1987 onwards; the fact that credibility was 'shared'; the progressive deterioration of credibility after the first Danish referendum without changes in the economic fundamentals. We argue that the reason lies in the fact that the literature has not incorporated the changes in the perceived prospects of EMU. We show that an adjustable peg regime that incorporates those prospects can explain the three features listed above and provide an alternative interpretation of the EMS crisis. We then focus our attention on the short-run dynamics of U.S. inflation. U.S. price inflation exhibits substantial inertia. The source of that inflation inertia is however controversial. In the second part of the thesis, we derive a wage contracting specification that implies inflation persistence to investigate the role of nominal rigidities to explain that degree of inertia. The contracting specification is derived from intertemporal optimisation under two basic assumptions: (i) wage staggering; (11) relative wage concern by wage-setters. The novelty is the analysis of relative wage concern. In chapter 2 we review the existing evidence and theoretical support pointing at relative wage concern as a fundamental factor in the wage contracting process. In chapters 3 and 4, we build a dynamic general equilibrium macromodel to study its implications. In chapter 3 we investigate two potential sources of inflation inertia: the contracting specification described above, and the lack of rationality of expectations. We then carry out a test for the source of inflation inertia. Our empirical results suggest that alternative sources of inertia beyond that imparted by the lack of full rationality of expectations are needed to characterise U.S. inflation dynamics. In chapter 4 we focus our investigation on the persistence of the real effects of money shocks. In contrast to previous models of staggered wages/prices, output and inflation persistence are robust findings of the model. Moreover, persistence results hold for all the sensible parameterisations. Given the empirical evidence in favour of the existence of a strong relative wage concern, we conclude that relative concern may be the missing piece in the money shocks persistence puzzle raised by recent literature.

Since his election into office, a cloud of uncertainty has surrounded President Trump’s foreign policy ambitions. Much of today’s scholarship concerns its unpredictable nature and scope. President Trump, like previous presidents who have come before him, entered office with very little foreign policy experience. A key feature of his non-principled, fast-alternating foreign policy is that few people know exactly what he is going to propose next in terms of his international strategy. Coupled with this strategy is Trump’s desire for international credibility and a strong reputation. This desire seems fundamentally at odds with his foreign policy strategy, as Trump proposes isolationist measures and countries learn to fear his foreign policy’s unpredictability. This paper aims to take a critical look at the role of humanitarian intervention in a country’s foreign policy. It analyses whether countries like the United States can successfully introduce humanitarian intervention as a successful foreign policy prescription. More specifically, it aims to answer the following research question: is it possible for the United States to reclaim its founding values through intervention in humanitarian crises without hindering the country’s military credibility? This paper first proposes theory, then aims to cement that theory in a real-world scenario through the analysis of a specific case study. It uses a combination of primary sources, secondary sources, and more qualitative methods of data gathering to deeply analyze the relationship between humanitarian intervention, military credibility, and the United States’ founding values. It then goes on to critically analyze the application of these findings to the genocide currently occurring in West Sudan.

The growth of YouTube has resulted in the industrialization of a platform that redefines mainstream success. Success measures such as endorsements and viewership are serving as motivational factors for YouTubers. YouTubers and brands want more views, but are those motivations effecting perception? While much research has focused on the effects that YouTube has on the brand, this study focuses on the effects that the brand has on the YouTuber. It also determines whether viewership affects YouTuber perception and whether it‟s a success measure worth using. Using the constructs of the source credibility theory, this study assessed the main effect of brand endorsement and viewership on perceived expertise and trustworthiness of YouTubers. After conducting an online experiment, findings suggest that non-brand endorsed YouTubers possess higher-rated expertise and trustworthiness. While viewership did not make a difference in perceived expertise, it did result in higher-rated trustworthiness when a YouTuber possesses lower viewership.

Research into political satire programs show that they can be informative in the same way traditional news inform citizens and that the audience trust the information told by satirists. The political satire program Last Week Tonight with John Oliver has inspired the phenomenon ‘the John Oliver Effect’ due to comedian John Oliver’s ability to influence the world of politics and beyond with his in-depth investigations in serious subjects. In the author’s previous research Last Week Tonight has been portrayed by the media as being a credible source despite being the work of a comedian. This study therefore aimed to research what it is that makes Oliver and Last Week Tonight a credible source and whether some aspects of the reporting can be seen as communication campaign. With the theory of source credibility as part of its core, this study used the method of multimodality to ascertain that the main aspect that spoke to Oliver’s credibility was his perceived trustworthiness rather that his expertise or attractiveness. Using the same method but with the theory of communication campaign as part of its core, the study also ascertained that the program in general possessed some characteristics of a communication campaign but to be completely successful an episode had to possess all characteristics of a communication campaign. Merging this with previous research would indicate that subjectivity – Oliver’s authenticity and honest opinions and feelings – play an important part in his perceived credibility.

Master of Science
Department of Journalism and Mass Communications
Wes Wise
Escherichia Coli (E. Coli) contamination has been a long-existing concern for those engaged in cattle production, often causing negative public health and economic consequences. The existence of pre-harvest practices that reduce E. coli contamination creates the opportunity to support human health by focusing on modifying behaviors in cattle production through educational communication. It is vital to consider how the communication can be modified to persuade the audience. This study examined the effects of different sources, such as a veterinarian or a cattle producer, presenting the educational message in a training video. An experimental design was used to examine how the information source used in a video relates to the source’s credibility, as well as testing concepts related to the theory of planned behavior. A link to a video and an online questionnaire were distributed to cattle producers through the weekly news e-mail distributed by several beef industry organizations. The data analysis of 106 complete questionnaires found that no matter how a presenter was described in a training video there was no difference in the perceived credibility of the presenter. Also, no matter how the source was identified there was no difference in the variables related to the theory of planned behavior and possible behavior adoption. In addition to these results, this study found that no matter how the source was labeled, higher perceived credibility correlated with more positive attitudes, perceived norms, perceived behavior control and reported intention to adopt the suggested behaviors. This pattern provides evidence for credibility’s relationship with possible behavior adoption, indicating that credibility of the source is an important consideration when message designers are constructing training videos.

Familiar versions of empiricism overemphasize and misconstrue the importance of perceptual experience as a source of scientific knowledge. This chapter discusses their main descriptive and normative shortcomings and sketches an alternative framework for thinking about the contributions of human sensory systems and experimental equipment to scientific knowledge. Rather than assuming that all scientific claims are developed, tested, and modified or rejected in the same way, this chapter suggests that philosophers would do better to look case by case at the epistemic pathways that link the credibility of different scientific claims to different epistemically significant factors.

Traditional Buddhist views of karma as a cosmic force that makes the universe fair have little credibility in contemporary philosophy. However, a naturalized account of karma, understanding it as a psychological process, could easily turn out to be true. If we read between the lines of Śāntideva’s classic Training Anthology, there is reason to believe that some of his sources already had such a psychological view in mind. A modernized account of karma would have important implications for the theoretical structure of Buddhist ethics, the prospects for a Buddhist political philosophy, and the practice of Engaged Buddhism in contemporary society.

The first chapter establishes who practised architecture in the period and on what grounds they were considered to be credible practitioners of architectural design. Initially I set out the nature of the various people who designed buildings in the period and focus on one particularly important group who I term autodidactic architects, on the grounds that their credibility as architects came from their own learning from various sources. I then explore two authors who wrote extensively on this figure: Roger North, who defined the autodidactic architect in moral terms, and John Evelyn, who provided a more pragmatic definition of what he called the Architectus Ingenio. Evelyn, in contrast to North, claimed that people who had previously been builders could be included in the category of intellectual architect. This discussion sets up the rest of the book, which explores the nature of the knowledge these figures were expected to handle.

Scholarly examination of the media coverage of the Supreme Court occurs for both intrinsic and instrumental purposes. Scholarly study of media coverage of the Court examines the content, frame, and magnitude of the coverage. Pushing further, these examinations provide critical information about the relationship between media coverage and the institutional credibility of the Court. Studies of media coverage are also instrumental as they provide metrics useful in the explication of judicial behavior. Despite the usefulness of the work explored here, the knowledge gained may be expiring. As social networks usurp traditional and online media sources as the conduit for information, our focus on the relationship of the mass media, its coverage of the Court, and various questions of judicial legitimacy or public knowledge may be expiring.

The typical story about creationist social movements centers on battles in the classroom or in the courtroom—like the Scopes Trial in 1925. But there is a new setting: a museum. “Prepare to Believe” is the slogan that greets visitors throughout the Creation Museum located in Petersburg, Kentucky. It carries the message that the organization Answers in Genesis (AiG) uses to welcome fellow believers as well as skeptics since opening in 2007. The Creation Museum seeks to persuade visitors that if one views both the Bible (a close, literal reading) and nature (observational, real world data) as sources of authority, then the earth appears to be much younger than conventionally understood in mainstream society. This book argues that the impact of the Creation Museum does not depend on the accuracy or credibility of its scientific claims, as many scholars, media critics, and political pundits would suggest. Instead, what AiG goes after by creating a physical site like the Creation Museum is the ability to foster plausibility politics—broadening what the audience perceives as possible and amplifying the stakes as the ideas reach more people. Destabilizing the belief that only one type of secular institution may make claims about the age of the earth and human origins, the Creation Museum is a threat to this singular positioning. In doing so, AiG repositions itself to produce longstanding effects on the public’s perception of who may make scientific claims. Creating the Creation Museum is a story about how a group endures.

This investigation compares 398 Spanish student and 481 Thai student perceptions of instructor credibility. The findings indicate a unidimensional construct shared in common by both cultures where instructor source credibility constitutes a second order factor that combines the three factors of: (a) competence, (b) trustworthiness, and (c) goodwill/caring. The results provide evidence for the cross-cultural application of an underlying theory for instructor source credibility measurement.

One of the strategies that are used by companies to differentiate their cosmetic products is celebrity endorsement. Despite this popular advertising technique, researchers and advertisers have not agreed as to which celebrity source characteristics are most effective in influencing consumers' purchase intention. Another important factor that affects consumers' purchase intention is the consumer ethnocentrism level. Consumers in different countries have different preference over local and international products. Thus, the objective of this chapter is to examine the source credibility theory with the moderating role of ethnocentrism. The result suggests that celebrity endorsers' trustworthiness (TR), attractiveness (AT), and expertise (EX) had a significant positive influence on cosmetic product purchase intention (CPPI). The moderating role of ethnocentrism between AT, TR, and CPPI were examined and found to be significant. This indicates that AT and TR are stronger when consumers' ethnocentrism is high.

Understanding knowledge transfer in computer mediated contexts is becoming essential given that organizations are spread more and more globally. In this chapter, the authors adopt elaboration likelihood theory to investigate knowledge transfer processes in a Knowledge Management System (KMS). They report the results of an exploratory experiment conducted to examine the impact of argument quality, source credibility and validation on knowledge usefulness of a document in a KMS. Their findings indicate that while validation of knowledge in KMS positively affects perceptions of knowledge usefulness, higher argument quality was associated with lower usefulness ratings. Surprisingly, source credibility has no effect on perceptions of knowledge usefulness. The implications of these results for both researchers and practitioners are discussed.

This chapter discusses and proposes an integrated model of actual online shopping use behaviour, with a moderating role of personal traits (openness to experience and agreeableness). Building on the TAM model, the proposed framework harnesses its factors from supported theories, namely social cognitive theory, source credibility theory, risk theory, and OCEAN model. A literature review approach is employed in which the author uses previous relevant studies to establish the relationship among the variables. Apart from direct relationships, the chapter conceptualises mediating role of Intention on the relationship between a set of predictors (internet self-efficacy, perceived channel credibility, financial and security risk) and actual online shopping usage behaviour. At the same time, the chapter explores the moderating role of openness to experience and agreeableness on the relationship between the TAM's belief constructs and intention. Finally, the chapter concludes with highlights on the framework's contributions, limitations, and plan for future empirical investigation.

This chapter examines a 30-year collection of tourism destination image (TDI) components and scale attributes sourced from tourism and hospitality studies to assess the scientific field at hand. From the 1990s, it was clear that cognitive, affective, and overall (holistic) images were involved in destination image formation. Cognitive psychology is crucial to explain tourists´ behaviour, but tourism studies are not simply a branch of cognitive psychology. This study taps into the multidisciplinary character of destination image. At stake are propositions and theories applicable in tourism such as the theory of self-congruity, self-concept, brand signal theory, destination source credibility, novelty seeking theory, and brand equity theory. The intention of the present chapter is to map its theoretical ground and underlying hypotheses by means of a systematic literature review and point out sub-studied dimensions of TDI.

If a person pays attention to a piece of information, they form a judgment about it. In many cases, the judgment is that they do not need to pay more attention to it. In some cases, however, the judgment is that they want to think more about the new information and attempt to integrate its content into what they already believe. What judgments prospective learners form about information affects when and how an educator can increase others’ knowledge and competence. Many civic educators struggle with the fact that information in politicized environments is often judged differently than information offered in other environments. Words and images in politicized environments are scrutinized, interpreted, and attacked in ways that rarely, if ever, occur in other educational settings. Educators who are used to communicating in nonpolitical environments, and who then wade into a politicized environment, often find these dynamics surprising. Actually, “surprising” is a gentle way to put it. Many educators learn that educational strategies that work well in classrooms or at professional conferences are disastrous when attempted in more emotionally charged and politicized environments. Many educators who venture into more politicized contexts find that their information is ignored. Others find their words misinterpreted and twisted. Many have difficulty explaining why their attempts to convey their expertise to others in these important environments were not more constructively received. In this chapter, I examine how communication dynamics change as learning environments become more politicized. To help educators better manage these dynamics, I highlight two factors that affect source credibility in political contexts. These factors are perceived common interests and perceived relative knowledge. Each factor has significant effects on how prospective learners interpret words and images. Educators who understand these dynamics can better identify information that prospective learners are—and are not—likely to believe. Such knowledge can help educa¬tors increase knowledge and competence more effectively—and reduce unwanted surprises. . . . The chapter’s main lessons are as follows: When prospective learners can interpret information in multiple ways, their perceptions of an educator’s motives and expertise can affect whether or not they pay attention to the information and what inferences they draw from it. . . .

Through persuasive communications, information technology (IT) executives hope to align the actions of end users with the expectations of senior management and of the firm regarding technology usage. One highly influential factor of persuasive effectiveness is the source of the persuasive message. This study presents a conceptual model for explaining the influence of source credibility on end user attitudes and behavioral intentions to comply with organizationally motivated, recommended IT actions within a decentralized, autonomous environment. The results of this study suggest that the elements of source competency, trustworthiness, and dynamism are significant determinants of attitudes and behavioral intentions to engage in recommended IT actions. These findings reveal the importance of these elements of effective communication in persuading end users to follow recommended IT activities and advance IT acceptance and adoption research through the application of persuasive communication theory to the domain.

This study combines the dual-process theory (DPT) and the uncertainty reduction theory (URT) to examine how on-line consumer reviews affect consumer uncertainty reduction and value perceptions in order to understand whether consumer attitudes will be influenced by on-line consumer reviews and if relationships are built between consumers and companies as a result. The results indicated that argument quality, recommendation sidedness, source credibility, confirmation of prior beliefs, and recommendation ratings have a positive effect on the uncertainty reduction of consumers towards the businesses under consideration. Since uncertainty reduction has an effect on value perception, this study suggests that companies provide on-line consumer reviews on their websites to increase consumer uncertainty reduction and to improve consumer value perception of their companies.

The late 1940s and 1950s are rightly regarded as a period of social upheaval and restructuring on both sides of Atlantic. The post-war Baby Boom, the GI Bill, the Cold War, suburbanization, growing prosperity, urban regeneration, social mobility, road building, and car and television ownership all form part of this story. These years are also often viewed in retrospect as a ‘boom time’ for mainstream religion: a time of growing devotion, church building, and—among Catholics particularly—growing self-confidence and social acceptance. Yet under the surface, cracks were beginning to form, with lapsation (or leakage) a source of growing anxiety. This chapter narrates the socio-religious history of this period, in light of three theoretical lenses: social network theory, plausibility structures, and Credibility Enhancing Displays (CREDs).

Credibility is unfairly deflated and inflated in relation to other power dynamics, including misogyny. Various techniques are used to discredit unwelcome truths of women and girls, including dismissing their knowledge as trivial, and discrediting them as too emotional (or hysterical) to be reliable sources. Social credibility deflation can lead to self-doubt; consider gaslighting, where one person erodes another’s confidence in their ability to accurately perceive reality, making them doubt their own credibility. The chapter concludes by discussing feminist epistemologies of resistance, highlighting theories of Patricia Hill Collins, José Medina, and Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui and inviting the reader to take part in a pluralistic dialogue reimagining credibility. This chapter is anchored by the story of Cassandra: the god Apollo gave her the gift of prophecy, then requested that she have sex with him. When she declined, he cursed her credibility: she would speak prophetic truths, but nobody would believe her.

This paper reports a study of information and communication technology (ICT) use in Norway and the United States. Forty-two depth interviews completed in both countries provide the data source. Using grounded theory as a research method, and Adaptive Structuration Theory as our conceptual base, we analyze these interviews to generate an empirical model of ICT use. The 1490 incidents identified in our analysis are first reduced to 49 categories. These categories are further reduced to four: satisficing, communication channels, communication structure, and environmental agents. These four categories comprise the major parts of the reflexive model. The findings suggest that the parts of the model are interdependent and mutually causal in that individuals consider and even reconsider the use of multiple communication channels within and between tasks. As a conclusion we address future research including, credibility and time issues in ICT use.

Exploring evidence from relevant articles to confirm the veracity of claims is a trend towards explainable claim verification. However, most strategies capture the top-k check-worthy articles or salient words as evidence, but this evidence is difficult to focus on the questionable parts of unverified claims. Besides, they utilize relevant articles indiscriminately, ignoring the source credibility of these articles, which may cause quiet a few unreliable articles to interfere with the assessment results. In this paper, we propose Evidence-aware Hierarchical Interactive Attention Networks (EHIAN) by considering the capture of evidence fragments and the fusion of source credibility to explore more credible evidence semantics discussing the questionable parts of claims for explainable claim verification. EHIAN first designs internal interaction layer (IIL) to strengthen deep interaction and matching between claims and relevant articles for obtaining key evidence fragments, and then proposes global inference layer (GIL) that fuses source features of articles and interacts globally with the average semantics of all articles and finally earns the more credible evidence semantics discussing the questionable parts of claims. Experiments on two datasets demonstrate that EHIAN not only achieves the state-of-the-art performance but also secures effective evidence to explain the results.

People rapidly form impressions from facial appearance, and these impressions affect social decisions. Data-driven, computational models are the best available tools for identifying the source of such impressions. However, the computational models cannot be accepted unless they have passed the tests of validation to ascertain their credibility. In this paper, the condition of the eyes of the person is used to validate the fuzzy rules extracted from the computational models. A simple and effective classifier is proposed to evaluate the closeness of the eyes during the evaluation of a small database of portraits. The experimental results show that closed-eyes can be detected only after the proposed shift of the normalized histogram is applied. Although it is very simple, the proposed classifier can achieve better accuracy than other state of the art classifiers. The relationship between the closeness of the eyes and the evaluation of the subjects is also analyzed.

Attention to safety and health are of ever-increasing priority to industrial organizations. Good Safety is demanded by stockholders, employees, and the community while increasing injury costs provide additional motivation for safety and health excellence. Safety has always been a strong corporate value of DuPont and a vital part of its culture. As a result, DuPont has become a benchmark in safety and health performance. Since 1990, DuPont has re-engineered itself to meet global competition and address future vision. In the new re-engineered organizational structures, DuPont has also had to re-engineer its safety management systems. A special Discovery Team was chartered by DuPont senior management to determine the “best practices’ for safety and health being used in DuPont best-performing sites. A summary of the findings is presented, and five of the practices are discussed. Excellence in safety and health management is more important today than ever. Public awareness, federal and state regulations, and enlightened management have resulted in a widespread conviction that all employees have the right to work in an environment that will not adversely affect their safety and health. In DuPont, we believe that excellence in safety and health is necessary to achieve global competitiveness, maintain employee loyalty, and be an accepted member of the communities in which we make, handle, use, and transport products. Safety can also be the “catalyst” to achieving excellence in other important business parameters. The organizational and communication skills developed by management, individuals, and teams in safety can be directly applied to other company initiatives. As we look into the 21st Century, we must also recognize that new organizational structures (flatter with empowered teams) will require new safety management techniques and systems in order to maintain continuous improvement in safety performance. Injury costs, which have risen dramatically in the past twenty years, provide another incentive for safety and health excellence. Shown in the Figure 1, injury costs have increased even after correcting for inflation. Many companies have found these costs to be an “invisible drain” on earnings and profitability. In some organizations, significant initiatives have been launched to better manage the workers’ compensation systems. We have found that the ultimate solution is to prevent injuries and incidents before they occur. A globally-respected company, DuPont is regarded as a well-managed, extremely ethical firm that is the benchmark in industrial safety performance. Like many other companies, DuPont has re-engineered itself and downsized its operations since 1985. Through these changes, we have maintained dedication to our principles and developed new techniques to manage in these organizational environments. As a diversified company, our operations involve chemical process facilities, production line operations, field activities, and sales and distribution of materials. Our customer base is almost entirely industrial and yet we still maintain a high level of consumer awareness and positive perception. The DuPont concern for safety dates back to the early 1800s and the first days of the company. In 1802 E.I. DuPont, a Frenchman, began manufacturing quality grade explosives to fill America’s growing need to build roads, clear fields, increase mining output, and protect its recently won independence. Because explosives production is such a hazardous industry, DuPont recognized and accepted the need for an effective safety effort. The building walls of the first powder mill near Wilmington, Delaware, were built three stones thick on three sides. The back remained open to the Brandywine River to direct any explosive forces away from other buildings and employees. To set the safety example, DuPont also built his home and the homes of his managers next to the powder yard. An effective safety program was a necessity. It represented the first defense against instant corporate liquidation. Safety needs more than a well-designed plant, however. In 1811, work rules were posted in the mill to guide employee work habits. Though not nearly as sophisticated as the safety standards of today, they did introduce an important basic concept — that safety must be a line management responsibility. Later, DuPont introduced an employee health program and hired a company doctor. An early step taken in 1912 was the keeping of safety statistics, approximately 60 years before the federal requirement to do so. We had a visible measure of our safety performance and were determined that we were going to improve it. When the nation entered World War I, the DuPont Company supplied 40 percent of the explosives used by the Allied Forces, more than 1.5 billion pounds. To accomplish this task, over 30,000 new employees were hired and trained to build and operate many plants. Among these facilities was the largest smokeless powder plant the world had ever seen. The new plant was producing granulated powder in a record 116 days after ground breaking. The trends on the safety performance chart reflect the problems that a large new work force can pose until the employees fully accept the company’s safety philosophy. The first arrow reflects the World War I scale-up, and the second arrow represents rapid diversification into new businesses during the 1920s. These instances of significant deterioration in safety performance reinforced DuPont’s commitment to reduce the unsafe acts that were causing 96 percent of our injuries. Only 4 percent of injuries result from unsafe conditions or equipment — the remainder result from the unsafe acts of people. This is an important concept if we are to focus our attention on reducing injuries and incidents within the work environment. World War II brought on a similar set of demands. The story was similar to World War I but the numbers were even more astonishing: one billion dollars in capital expenditures, 54 new plants, 75,000 additional employees, and 4.5 billion pounds of explosives produced — 20 percent of the volume used by the Allied Forces. Yet, the performance during the war years showed no significant deviation from the pre-war years. In 1941, the DuPont Company was 10 times safer than all industry and 9 times safer than the Chemical Industry. Management and the line organization were finally working as they should to control the real causes of injuries. Today, DuPont is about 50 times safer than US industrial safety performance averages. Comparing performance to other industries, it is interesting to note that seemingly “hazard-free” industries seem to have extraordinarily high injury rates. This is because, as DuPont has found out, performance is a function of injury prevention and safety management systems, not hazard exposure. Our success in safety results from a sound safety management philosophy. Each of the 125 DuPont facilities is responsible for its own safety program, progress, and performance. However, management at each of these facilities approaches safety from the same fundamental and sound philosophy. This philosophy can be expressed in eleven straightforward principles. The first principle is that all injuries can be prevented. That statement may seem a bit optimistic. In fact, we believe that this is a realistic goal and not just a theoretical objective. Our safety performance proves that the objective is achievable. We have plants with over 2,000 employees that have operated for over 10 years without a lost time injury. As injuries and incidents are investigated, we can always identify actions that could have prevented that incident. If we manage safety in a proactive — rather than reactive — manner, we will eliminate injuries by reducing the acts and conditions that cause them. The second principle is that management, which includes all levels through first-line supervisors, is responsible and accountable for preventing injuries. Only when senior management exerts sustained and consistent leadership in establishing safety goals, demanding accountability for safety performance and providing the necessary resources, can a safety program be effective in an industrial environment. The third principle states that, while recognizing management responsibility, it takes the combined energy of the entire organization to reach sustained, continuous improvement in safety and health performance. Creating an environment in which employees feel ownership for the safety effort and make significant contributions is an essential task for management, and one that needs deliberate and ongoing attention. The fourth principle is a corollary to the first principle that all injuries are preventable. It holds that all operating exposures that may result in injuries or illnesses can be controlled. No matter what the exposure, an effective safeguard can be provided. It is preferable, of course, to eliminate sources of danger, but when this is not reasonable or practical, supervision must specify measures such as special training, safety devices, and protective clothing. Our fifth safety principle states that safety is a condition of employment. Conscientious assumption of safety responsibility is required from all employees from their first day on the job. Each employee must be convinced that he or she has a responsibility for working safely. The sixth safety principle: Employees must be trained to work safely. We have found that an awareness for safety does not come naturally and that people have to be trained to work safely. With effective training programs to teach, motivate, and sustain safety knowledge, all injuries and illnesses can be eliminated. Our seventh principle holds that management must audit performance on the workplace to assess safety program success. Comprehensive inspections of both facilities and programs not only confirm their effectiveness in achieving the desired performance, but also detect specific problems and help to identify weaknesses in the safety effort. The Company’s eighth principle states that all deficiencies must be corrected promptly. Without prompt action, risk of injuries will increase and, even more important, the credibility of management’s safety efforts will suffer. Our ninth principle is a statement that off-the-job safety is an important part of the overall safety effort. We do not expect nor want employees to “turn safety on” as they come to work and “turn it off” when they go home. The company safety culture truly becomes of the individual employee’s way of thinking. The tenth principle recognizes that it’s good business to prevent injuries. Injuries cost money. However, hidden or indirect costs usually exceed the direct cost. Our last principle is the most important. Safety must be integrated as core business and personal value. There are two reasons for this. First, we’ve learned from almost 200 years of experience that 96 percent of safety incidents are directly caused by the action of people, not by faulty equipment or inadequate safety standards. But conversely, it is our people who provide the solutions to our safety problems. They are the one essential ingredient in the recipe for a safe workplace. Intelligent, trained, and motivated employees are any company’s greatest resource. Our success in safety depends upon the men and women in our plants following procedures, participating actively in training, and identifying and alerting each other and management to potential hazards. By demonstrating a real concern for each employee, management helps establish a mutual respect, and the foundation is laid for a solid safety program. This, of course, is also the foundation for good employee relations. An important lesson learned in DuPont is that the majority of injuries are caused by unsafe acts and at-risk behaviors rather than unsafe equipment or conditions. In fact, in several DuPont studies it was estimated that 96 percent of injuries are caused by unsafe acts. This was particularly revealing when considering safety audits — if audits were only focused on conditions, at best we could only prevent four percent of our injuries. By establishing management systems for safety auditing that focus on people, including audit training, techniques, and plans, all incidents are preventable. Of course, employee contribution and involvement in auditing leads to sustainability through stakeholdership in the system. Management safety audits help to make manage the “behavioral balance.” Every job and task performed at a site can do be done at-risk or safely. The essence of a good safety system ensures that safe behavior is the accepted norm amongst employees, and that it is the expected and respected way of doing things. Shifting employees norms contributes mightily to changing culture. The management safety audit provides a way to quantify these norms. DuPont safety performance has continued to improve since we began keeping records in 1911 until about 1990. In the 1990–1994 time frame, performance deteriorated as shown in the chart that follows: This increase in injuries caused great concern to senior DuPont management as well as employees. It occurred while the corporation was undergoing changes in organization. In order to sustain our technological, competitive, and business leadership positions, DuPont began re-engineering itself beginning in about 1990. New streamlined organizational structures and collaborative work processes eliminated many positions and levels of management and supervision. The total employment of the company was reduced about 25 percent during these four years. In our traditional hierarchical organization structures, every level of supervision and management knew exactly what they were expected to do with safety, and all had important roles. As many of these levels were eliminated, new systems needed to be identified for these new organizations. In early 1995, Edgar S. Woolard, DuPont Chairman, chartered a Corporate Discovery Team to look for processes that will put DuPont on a consistent path toward a goal of zero injuries and occupational illnesses. The cross-functional team used a mode of “discovery through learning” from as many DuPont employees and sites around the world. The Discovery Team fostered the rapid sharing and leveraging of “best practices” and innovative approaches being pursued at DuPont’s plants, field sites, laboratories, and office locations. In short, the team examined the company’s current state, described the future state, identified barriers between the two, and recommended key ways to overcome these barriers. After reporting back to executive management in April, 1995, the Discovery Team was realigned to help organizations implement their recommendations. The Discovery Team reconfirmed key values in DuPont — in short, that all injuries, incidents, and occupational illnesses are preventable and that safety is a source of competitive advantage. As such, the steps taken to improve safety performance also improve overall competitiveness. Senior management made this belief clear: “We will strengthen our business by making safety excellence an integral part of all business activities.” One of the key findings of the Discovery Team was the identification of the best practices used within the company, which are listed below: ▪ Felt Leadership – Management Commitment ▪ Business Integration ▪ Responsibility and Accountability ▪ Individual/Team Involvement and Influence ▪ Contractor Safety ▪ Metrics and Measurements ▪ Communications ▪ Rewards and Recognition ▪ Caring Interdependent Culture; Team-Based Work Process and Systems ▪ Performance Standards and Operating Discipline ▪ Training/Capability ▪ Technology ▪ Safety and Health Resources ▪ Management and Team Audits ▪ Deviation Investigation ▪ Risk Management and Emergency Response ▪ Process Safety ▪ Off-the-Job Safety and Health Education Attention to each of these best practices is essential to achieve sustained improvements in safety and health. The Discovery Implementation in conjunction with DuPont Safety and Environmental Management Services has developed a Safety Self-Assessment around these systems. In this presentation, we will discuss a few of these practices and learn what they mean. Paper published with permission.

Major multilateral arms control and disarmament treaties dealing with weapons of mass destruction (WMD) often have mandated an international organization to monitor and verify State party compliance and to handle cases of non-compliance. There are marked differences in the mandates and technical capabilities of these bodies. Nonetheless, they often face the same operational and existential challenges. This report looks at the role of multilateral verification bodies, especially their secretariats, in dealing with compliance and enforcement, the extent to which they achieve “agency” and “influence” in doing so, and whether and how such capacities might be enhanced. In WMD organizations it is the governing bodies that make decisions about noncompliance and enforcement. The role of their secretariats is to manage the monitoring and verification systems, analyse the resulting data – and data from other permitted sources – and alert their governing bodies to suspicions of non-compliance. Secretariats are expected to be impartial, technically oriented and professional. It is when a serious allegation of non-compliance arises that their role becomes most sensitive politically and most vital. The credibility of Secretariats in these instances will depend on the agency and influence that they have accumulated. There are numerous ways in which an international secretariat can position itself for maximum agency and influence, essentially by making itself indispensable to member States and the broader international community. It can achieve this by engaging with multiple stakeholders, aiming for excellence in its human and technical resources, providing timely and sustainable implementation assistance, ensuring an appropriate organizational culture and, perhaps most of all, understanding that knowledge is power. The challenge for supporters of international verification organizations is to enhance those elements that give them agency and influence and minimize those that lead to inefficiencies, dysfunction and, most damaging of all, political interference in verification and compliance judgements.