Tuesday, 3 May 2011

Trust and Risk

source: D. M. Rousseau, S. B. Sitkin, R. S. Burt, and C. Camerer. Not so different after all: A cross-discipline view of trust. In ACADEMY OF MANAGEMENT REVIEW, volume 23, pages 393–404, 1998.

Across disciplines, there is agreement on the conditions that must exist for trust to arise. Risk is one condition considered essential in psychologi- cal, sociological, and economic conceptualiza- tions of trust (Coleman, 1990; Rotter, 1967; William- son, 1993). Risk is the perceived probability of loss, as interpreted by a decision maker (Chiles & Mc- Mackin, 1996; MacCrimmon & Wehrung, 1986). The path-dependent connection between trust and risk taking arises from a reciprocal relationship: risk creates an opportunity for trust, which leads to risk taking. Moreover, risk taking buttresses a sense of trust when the expected behavior mate- rializes (Coleman, 1990; Das & Teng, this issue). Trust would not be needed if actions could be undertaken with complete certainty and no risk (Lewis & Weigert, 1985). Uncertainty regarding whether the other intends to and will act appro- priately is the source of risk.

No comments:

Post a Comment