Doctor of Organization Development & Change (D.O.D.C.), Bowling Green State University, 2024, Organization Development

The aim of this dissertation is to investigate the trust relationship between the Social Security Administration (SSA), an agency of the federal government, and the American public. Trust is a crucial element of any effective government-public relationship, as it enables the public to have confidence in the government and its ability to serve the common good, and it allows the government to carry out its duties and responsibilities effectively. When trust is damaged or lost, it can lead to a breakdown in the relationship between the government and the public, which can have serious negative consequences for both parties. This study will explore three dimensions of trust repair as they relate to the SSA: factors that influence the public's perception of trustworthiness, the impact of Organizational Justice on trust, and the actions that the SSA can take to repair trust with the American public. This research has implications for the emerging field of trust repair and can provide valuable insights for federal agencies on how to rebuild trust with the public.

Committee: Deborah O'Neil Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Colleen Boff Ed.D. (Other); Corrie Voss Ed.D. (Committee Member); David Park Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Management; Organization Theory; Organizational Behavior; Social Psychology

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2022, Engineering and Applied Science: Computer Science and Engineering

With the paradigm shift to cloud-based operations, reliable and secure access to and transfer of data between differing security domains has never been more essential. A Cross Domain Solution (CDS) is a guarded interface which serves to execute the secure access and/or transfer of data between isolated and/or differing security domains defined by an administrative security policy. Cross domain security requires trustworthiness at the confluence of the hardware and software components which implement a security policy. Security components must be relied upon to defend against widely encompassing threats -- consider insider threats and nation state threat actors which can be both onsite and offsite threat actors -- to information assurance. Current implementations of CDS systems use sub-optimal Trusted Computing Bases (TCB) without any formal verification proofs, confirming the gap between blind trust and trustworthiness. Moreover, most CDSs are exclusively operated by Department of Defense agencies and are not readily available to the commercial sectors, nor are they available for independent security verification. Still, more CDSs are only usable in physically isolated environments such as Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities and are inconsistent with the paradigm shift to cloud environments. Our purpose is to address the question of how trustworthiness can be implemented in a remotely deployable CDS that also supports availability and accessibility to all sectors. In this paper, we present a novel CDS system architecture which is the first to use a formally verified TCB. Additionally, our CDS model is the first of its kind to utilize a computation-isolation approach which allows our CDS to be remotely deployable for use in cloud-based solutions.

Committee: John Franco Ph.D. (Committee Member); John Emmert Ph.D. (Committee Member); Marcus Dwan Pendleton Ph.D. (Committee Member); Nan Niu Ph.D. (Committee Member); Rashmi Jha Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Computer Science

Doctor of Organization Development & Change (D.O.D.C.), Bowling Green State University, 2022, Organization Development

The social determinants of health (SDOH) are a focus for many not-for-profit (NFP) healthcare organizations. The goal is to address the negative SDOH through different initiatives and improve the overall health of the communities that the NFP healthcare organizations serve. Many initiatives are deployed to treat the negative SDOH present in communities. The present research looked at relations between trust, trustworthiness, distrust in healthcare, awareness of the SDOH initiatives, and trust propensity. A quantitative study was performed with participants who evaluated different SDOH initiatives, perceptions of trustworthiness of healthcare organizations, trust propensity, and generalized distrust in healthcare systems. Findings indicate trust having a positive relation with awareness and a negative relation with trustworthiness, as well as perceptions of trustworthiness having a negative relation to distrust and a positive relation with trust propensity. There is also an indirect positive relation of awareness of the SDOH initiatives on trustworthiness through distrust in healthcare.

Committee: Michelle Brodke Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Farida Selim Ph.D. (Committee Member); Debra Ball Ed.D. (Committee Member); Michael Zickar Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Health Care; Health Care Management; Public Health; Social Research

Master of Science (MS), Ohio University, 2020, Journalism (Communication)

As news consumers move online, journalists and media professionals face new challenges regarding the way in which they maintain trust with audiences. The spread of disinformation and misleading messages has become a pertinent issue for both consumers and creators on social media platforms, making source credibility online an incredibly important evaluation for consumers to consider and for journalists to adhere to. This study examined the perceptions of credibility for journalists on Twitter based on their gender and the number of followers they had. A total of 200 respondents with Twitter accounts residing in the U.S. took part in the study and a 2 (gender: male or female) x 2 (Twitter followers: high or low) between subjects experimental design with random assignment to view one of four conditions was utilized. Results of the study suggest that gender and the number of Twitter followers a journalist has does not influence a respondent's evaluation of their credibility, but the number of followers a female journalist has on Twitter has a marginal effect on her perceived trustworthiness, a dimension of credibility, while the same is not true for a male journalist.

Committee: Parul Jain Dr. (Committee Chair); Hans Meyer Dr. (Committee Member); Rosanna Planer (Committee Member) Subjects: Communication; Journalism; Mass Communications; Mass Media

MA, Kent State University, 2016, College of the Arts / School of Art

As readership of fashion blogs has increased, so too has their influence on ordinary people, or so one would believe. The objective of this research is to gain a better understanding of the perceived influence of fashion bloggers through examination of several industry-recognized “influential blogs” and a survey of blog reader's perception of influence. This study seeks to identify the key elements of blog content that fashion bloggers must possess at a minimum to have any significant degree of influence on their readers. Four key elements have been identified as fundamental to having and sustaining influence among blog readers, in general; (1) Trustworthiness (2) Expertise (3) Personal Relevance and (4) Authenticity. A survey of 159 fashion students at Kent State University's Fashion School was conducted to gain further insight into the fashion blog readers' perceptions of influence in the context of these four key elements. The presence (or absence) of the four elements do appear to positively (or negatively) impact influence on a typical fashion blog reader or subscriber. The essential findings from the survey demonstrate that a blog's influence remains linked to readers' perceptions, particularly in the context of these four elements, and may well be evaluated and ranked on such key elements. This study also found that fashion bloggers are progressively more influential as a result of the interactive elements of prevailing social media platforms and the proliferation of digital technology, which tend to increase electronic word-of-mouth and further contribute to the fashion blogger's level of influence. The practical implications are clear for fashion bloggers and personal style bloggers who strive to have any degree of influence on readers and subscribers to their blogs, as well as those who seek to attract and sustain an audience as a successful business model within the increasingly competitive world of fashion blogs.

Committee: Kim Hahn Dr. (Advisor) Subjects: Entrepreneurship; Marketing; Mass Communications; Mass Media; Personal Relationships

Master of Arts (M.A.), Xavier University, 2016, Psychology

Publication bias and questionable research practices (QRPs) are a growing topic of concern (Jeffrey et al., 2015; Kepes & McDaniel, 2013; Koehler et al., 2015; Mullins, Crowe, & Wymer, 2015). Developing a scale to accurately measure the consequences of publication bias on outcomes such as perceived trustworthiness of the literature is critical to evaluate the extent to which publication bias, and QRPs, impact science, and is the goal of the present study. Items were developed using the available research information. It was hypothesized that there would be a negative correlation between graduate student awareness of publication bias and their level of trust in the literature, which was supported. Additionally, distrust, social cynicism, and negative affectivity (NA), were included in the study to assess the validity of the developed measure. It was hypothesized that all validation constructs would negatively correlate with the perceived trustworthiness scale. None of these were supported, however there are several explanations for this. These implications, and study limitations, are discussed further.

Committee: Morrie Mullins Ph.D (Committee Chair); Dalia Diab Ph.D (Committee Member); Mark Nagy Ph.D (Committee Member) Subjects: Psychological Tests; Psychology