Trust in the context of subscription contracts

Mosolova, Polina

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URN:	urn:nbn:de:bsz:180-madoc-624898
Document Type:	Doctoral dissertation
Year of publication:	2022
Place of publication:	Mannheim
University:	Universität Mannheim
Evaluator:	Keusch, Florian
Publication language:	English
Institution:	Außerfakultäre Einrichtungen > Graduate School of Economic and Social Sciences- CDSS (Social Sciences)
Subject:	300 Social sciences, sociology, anthropology
Keywords (English):	trust , interorganizational relationships , churn , machine learning , computational social science , case study
Abstract:	Trust plays an essential role in interorganizational interactions. It reduces uncertainty, ensures long-term relationships, positively influences innovation, product adoption, and serves as a solution to the commitment problem. This work observes trust in the context of a Software as a Service (SaaS) market. In a case study of a SaaS service provider and their customers, I apply the Ability, Benevolence, Integrity trust framework to illustrate the effect of individual trust dimensions on the relationship between the customer and the service provider. First, for integrity-based trust, I show a positive effect of early interactions with customer success teams on product usage. Second, I show that benevolence-based trust increases customer engagement. Third, I use supervised machine learning and explainability methods to illustrate the positive effect of the ABI trust dimensions on customer contract extensions. Methodologically, this work suggests a strategy for machine learning applications in sociological research. Finally, this work derives practical managerial implications for service providers.