This paper reviews the recent case of The DAO “hack” in June 2016 and analyzes The DAO's response in its time of crisis, and its implications for corporate and IT governance. There was no human-led governance in The DAO. Instead, The DAO placed its trust in the smart contract they had built together on the blockchain, which became its governance mechanism. The events that follow allow us to see hitherto unobservable organizational behaviors that are unique to trustless organizations, and hence The DAO gives us a glimpse at a new species of corporate governance. This paper explores the implications of these ideas: we propose the emergence of a spectrum of organizations based on the alienation of trust, we consider the economic impact and legality of decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), smart contracts, work and job design, and what happens when corporate governance is managed solely by IT governance.

Although there is a considerable body of empirical evidence on the subject of electronic commerce trust, most of it is correlational evidence based on field surveys, and very little attention has been given to causal effects of how participants in electronic markets transfer their trust beliefs between physical and virtual environments. Research has previously established that structural assurance and situational normality have differential effects on vendor and technology-based trust. Generalized expectancies are used as a theory for understanding how people trust and transfer trust in the context of electronic commerce technologies. In theory, there should be differential cause-and-effect relationships between trust antecedents and transfer of trust between physical and virtual environments. This study reports the results of a randomized experiment on the effects of structural assurance and situational normality on the transfer of electronic commerce trust between physical and virtual environments. A pretest-treatment-posttest design using MANOVA revealed that structural assurance, situational normality, and direction of transfer have differential effects on vendor-based trust and technology-based trust. Structural assurance prevents loss of trust in physical-to-virtual transfers, and both situational normality and structural assurance cause increases in trust for virtual-to-physical transfers for technology-based trust, but not necessarily for vendor-based trust. The results indicate significant differences between how trust operates in physical-to-virtual transfers versus virtual-to-physical transfers.

This article examines the literature surrounding bionano sensors, its anticipated applications and biological risks associated with their use. Despite being largely unfamiliar with bionano technology, existing research indicates that individuals are optimistic about bionano technologies and are seemingly nonchalant about their potential risks. This would suggest individuals may hold significant positive trust beliefs in bionano sensors, contrary to the predictions of technology trust theory. This article draws on McKnight et al.’s technology trust model and generalised expectancies of technology (perceived functionality, reliability and effectiveness). Using experimental procedure, this article confirms that individuals perceive bionano sensors to be a trustworthy technology and seeks to understand this ‘emerging technology trust paradox’.