Enhancing Electronic Markets for Industrial Services by Trust Features

The level of trust in a service provider is an important decision factor when buying industrial services. Especially, the outcome uncertainties of services, its´ individuality and asymmetric information between buyer and seller are some reasons that the evaluation of trust is a key component in service trading. Consequently, searching of potential new suppliers involves the examination of providers' trustworthiness. Additional, the importance of online marketplaces increased for searching of suppliers in a global environment, which needs to support this trust evaluation process by describing trust signals. <br> This paper focuses on the study of online trust signals used by buyers, to assess provider´s trustworthiness in the context of industrial services. Main research objective is to propose the basis for a digital tool, which helps buyers to assess provider´s trustworthiness by providing a "standardized trustworthiness signal description" and "trust functionalities". A particular approach is used, different methods are mixed such as a case study, expert interviews and a quantitative method following the guideline of the design science paradigm. The aim is to propose a useful tool for trustworthiness assessment to enhance e-markets for industrial services.