Institute for Management, Business, and Accounting Studies Institute for Management, Business, and Accounting Studies

Search

Search results:
Managing Digital Trust across Customers, Employees, Platforms, and Regulators in Data-Driven Business Ecosystems
Trust has become a central strategic condition of participation in the digital economy. Data-driven firms depend on customers who share personal information, employees who accept digital systems at work, platforms that coordinate ecosystem participation, and regulators who evaluate organizational credibility. When trust weakens in any of these domains, the consequences can extend beyond the original stakeholder group. Existing research has produced valuable insights into customer privacy, algorithmic fairness, employee surveillance, platform dependence, and governance. However, these domains are often treated separately, which limits the ability of managers to understand how digital trust crises unfold across stakeholder boundaries. A data breach, opaque algorithmic decision, or platform governance failure can simultaneously damage market confidence, employee morale, ecosystem relationships, and regulatory legitimacy. This article develops a unified Digital Trust Management Framework for data-driven business ecosystems. The framework treats digital trust as a systemic managerial capability rather than as a set of isolated stakeholder concerns. It integrates trust-building, trust-maintenance, and trust-repair mechanisms across customers, employees, platforms, and regulators. The article is based on a conceptual synthesis of  peer-reviewed articles published. These studies are integrated across strategic management, organizational trust, digital business, information systems, platform ecosystems, data privacy, artificial intelligence governance, and stakeholder management. The synthesis supports a framework that links stakeholder-specific trust drivers with shared managerial mechanisms such as transparency, accountability, participation, security, fairness, and governance credibility. The framework shows that digital trust must be managed as an interconnected ecosystem property. It identifies how trust erosion cascades across stakeholder groups and how integrated trust governance can help firms prevent, contain, and repair digital trust failures. The article contributes a practical roadmap for managers seeking to sustain legitimacy and performance in data-driven business ecosystems.
Journal of Digital Business and Management Studies
Original Research | Open access | 18 September 2025 | Article: 90