Table 2 measurements of relationship intensity of

Table 2. Measurements of relationship intensity of communication, supervision, and trust.
Networks Measurement Methods Scores
Communication
• Frequency of
communication activities
◦ Four levels: (i) None, (ii)One to six times per year, (iii) Seven
to twelve times per year, and (iv)More than once per month
0–3
Supervision
• Supervision from industry association
◦ Diverse supervision activities have di ff erent intensity
◦ Respondents also just Weak or strong implementation
0 1
• Qualification examination 1 2
• Contract restrictions 1 2
• Institution-level rating 1 2
• Administrative supervision 1 2
• Quality inspection 1 2
• Consumer complaint 2 3
• Financial inspection 2 3
Trust
• Ability ◦ The abilities of the stakeholder to meet the demands 0–3
• Reliability
◦ The stakeholder can fulfill their responsibilities in
accordance with agreements and rules
0–3
• Friendship ◦ The stakeholder can consider others’ needs and suggestions 0–3
Supervision relationship intensities are determined by supervision activities like contract
restrictions, institution-level rating, and quality inspection. The eight types of supervision activities
in Table 2 are extracted from the o ffi cial documents (Table S1), and the intensities of these activities
are assessed by the experts based on their experiences and knowledge (Table S2). Additionally, the
implementation of these supervision activities is further di ff erentiated into strong or weak degrees,
which have di ff erent scores (Table 2 ) [ 51 ].

Sustainability 2019 , 11 , 6722 7 of 19
The trust relationship is a relatively subjective concept, so it is di ffi cult to reach a consensus on a
clear definition [ 52 ]. One widely accepted decomposition of trust is from Geyskens and Steenkamp
who regard ability, reliability, and friendship as critical factors of trust [ 52 ]. Ability implies stakeholders
meeting demands, reliability refers to stakeholders fulfilling their responsibilities in accordance with
formal or informal agreements, and friendship refers to stakeholders considering the interests of others
when making a decision [ 52 ]. The three indicators possess the same weights (i.e., 1 / 3) for measuring
the trust relationship between two stakeholders (Table 2 ).
After determining the conceptual measurement methods for communication, supervision, and
trust relationships, the questionnaire is devised and attached in Table S3; its structure is similar to
Table 2 . Specific organizations or individuals representing each stakeholder group are randomly
selected for the surveys. The recruitment work is divided into two parts respectively for institutions
and individuals. The questionnaires are distributed to the eligible institutions until the number of
respondents satisfies the requirements, and the authors employ the “12349” hotline operated by the
city-level information platform to call the older people who are randomly selected from the registered
population database. Table 1 shows that the numbers of organizations in di ff erent categories of
stakeholders are of considerable variety, so the number of selected respondents is varied for particular
stakeholder groups. For example, the older people (no. 21 and 22 in Table 1 ) are individuals, at least
100 people are chosen randomly for both groups in the survey. As for the AIP service organizations
(no. 14–18 in Table 1 ), at least 30 organizations under each group are investigated. The respondent
should list the communication activities between their own organization with each other type of