Tobias Kölbel

Background & Motivation

In the digital age of the internet, with ever-growing networks and data-driven business models, digital platforms and especially marketplaces are becoming increasingly important. These platforms focus primarily on digital businesses by offering services that connect consumers and producers. Due to the added value created for customers, the profit-oriented operators of these platforms ("matchmakers" such as Amazon, Uber or Airbnb) are extremely successful and dominate their respective markets. However, data leaks or other types of trust abuse occur repeatedly. Especially in the B2B sector, these data privacy issues are a problem.

Aim of the thesis

The aim of your thesis is to design a suitable experimental design to evaluate the trust of market participants in platform operators, who are the orchestrators of marketplace transactions. First, the B2C context should be considered. After designing the experiment, you should also demonstrate the extent to which the experiment can be transferred to the B2B context. A manufacturing marketplace will serve as an example.

As a result of the research, a design prototype should be created that can be used in the Karlsruhe Decision & Design Lab (KD²Lab).

Formalities

This thesis will be written at IISM in corporation with the Bosch Economy of Things Project. This thesis is NOT an external thesis. You are free to write your thesis in German or English. Please apply with a short letter of motivation (approx. ½ page), your CV and a current overview of your grades. You can start working on the project immediately.