Comparative, cross-national studies could test the generalisability of our conclusions and explore

The gap

Evidence profile

Sourced from the future-work section and future work of the source papers, classified as general, drawn from work published between 2025 and 2026, spanning 3 journals. Those papers have been cited 5 times in total.

Supporting evidence — 4 representative gaps

• From Social to Financial: Understanding Trust in Extended Payment Services on Social Networking Platforms (2025) · Behavioral Sciences · cited 3× · doi

  Incorporate diverse cultural settings to examine how the mechanisms of cognitive and emotional trust may differ across cultures. Examine the reverse spillover effect of the extended service's potential feedback effect on the primary service. Employ longitudinal or cross-lagged panel designs to investigate how trust in extended services and trust in primary services influence each other over time. Explore how trust is built and maintained in the broader payment ecosystem, including post-transaction experiences and perceived cybersecurity risks.

  generalfuture-work section
  Keywords: incorporate diverse cultural settings examine mechanisms cognitive emotional
• Behavioral Architectures of Trust: Conceptualizing Consumer Trust Formation in Digital Startups (2026) · Journal of the Knowledge Economy · doi

  The present framework, being conceptual, leaves several empirical questions open. Four priority directions emerge. First, future research should develop and validate measurement instruments for behavioral trust architecture, enabling survey-based and longitudinal testing of the dimensions proposed here. Second, experimental studies are needed to examine how specific design choices — defaults, consent framing, algorithmic explainability — influence trust judgments under controlled conditions, building on existing work on digital nudging and choice architecture (Xirakia et al., 2026). Third, longitudinal studies tracking trust formation from first encounter through sustained use would allow the path-dependence dynamics described in this article to be tested empirically. Fourth, cross-cultural and cross-regulatory comparisons would help establish which trust architecture dimensions are universal and which are moderated by national con- text, cultural norms, or regulatory environment (Carayannis & Zotas 2026a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h). Trust expectations differ systematically across contexts, and a frame- work developed primarily from Western digital market literature should be tested and refined in a wider range of settings (Ambos & Tatarinov, 2022). 1 3Journal of the Knowledge EconomyConclusion Consumer trust in digital startups is no longer an outcome of reputation or brand familiarity. It is a judgment continuously formed and revised through interaction with the behavioral environments that digital ventures design, operate, and govern (Androutsopoulou et al., 2025). This article has argued that understanding trust forma- tion in this context requires moving beyond static, perception-based models toward a processual and architectural account — one that explains how specific design choices, algorithmic mechanisms, and governance structures collectively signal trustworthi- ness to consumers navigating conditions of uncertainty and information asymmetry. The concept of behavioral architectures of trust, organized around three layers, interactional, algorithmic, and governance and evaluated through four dimensions, transparency, controllability, consistency, and fairness — provides a theoretically grounded and practically applicable framework for this purpose. Its central impli- cation is that trust is a design outcome as much as a relational one, and that start- ups which treat behavioral architecture as a strategic asset rather than an operational default are better positioned to build the durable consumer relationships that under- pin sustainable competitive advantage (Carayannis et al., 2025). The ethical dimension of this argument carries equal weight. Behavioral design tools can support or undermine autonomy, and trust built through manipulation is fundamentally fragile (Carayannis & Zotas 2026a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h). For digital startups operating in increasingly regulated environments, aligning behavioral archi- tecture with transparency and fairness is therefore both an ethical obligation and a strategic necessity. Author Contribution All authors contributed equally Funding No funding was received for this paper Data Availability Data is available upon request

  generalfuture workevidence 5/5
  Keywords: trust behavioral design digital architecture dimensions algorithmic carayannis framework four first based longitudinal specific choices
• Navigating the Blueprint: The Development of Institutional Trust Structures during Adolescence (2026) · European Journal of Political Research · cited 2× · doi

  Comparative, cross-national studies could test the generalisability of our conclusions and explore how different institutional contexts shape trust development elsewhere, - Future studies employing experimental methods could offer additional evidence on the evaluative nature of institutional trust during adolescence and its temporal development, - examining how subjective performance evaluations affect institutional trust levels over time

  generalfuture-work sectionevidence 5/5
  Keywords: comparative cross-national studies test generalisability conclusions explore different
• Rationally Trust, but Emotionally? The Roles of Cognitive and Affective Trust in Consumer Imitation Intention Toward Influencers in Short-Form Live Commerce (2026) · Behavioral Sciences · doi

  employ longitudinal or experimental designs to examine the temporal ordering among influencer and content perceptions, cognitive and affective trust, and imitation intention, - incorporate other factors, such as expertise, perceived credibility, parasocial interaction, perceived usefulness, social presence, and product-influencer fit, - replicate the model using larger samples and respondents with more diverse demographic and usage characteristics, - conduct cross-platform, cross-product, or cross-cultural comparisons to examine whether the relative roles of cognition-based and affective trust differ across contexts

  generalfuture-work sectionevidence 5/5
  Keywords: employ longitudinal experimental designs examine temporal ordering among

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