Towards Trustworthy Digital Ecosystems

The digital world is arguably our most complex human endeavour, and digital ecosystems play increasingly important roles in daily business and personal life. Trust has been identified as a key component in the smooth operation and growth of these ecosystems. Academic research into trust and trustworthiness in digital ecosystems has to date focused on how individuals make trusting decisions, predominantly as consumers. Although the literature implies or infers broader contexts in which these choices are made, there has been no systematic attention to the nature and parameters of the systems in which trust and trustworthiness can occur. We contend that the absence of such a system-level approach is a constraint to the design, creation and governance of online environments that are safer for all to navigate. We argue for a novel approach to system-level trustworthiness in digital ecosystems and contribute a conceptual framework to initiate this exploratory research