Tuesday, 3 May 2011

What is Trust?

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).

psychology/micro-organizational behavior, strategy/economics:
"willingness to be vulnerable," proposed by Mayer, Davis, and Schoorman (1995).
"willingness to rely" on another (Doney, Cannon, & Mullen)
"confident, positive expectations" (Lewicki et al.)

"Trust is a psychological state comprising the intention to accept vulnerability based upon positive expectations of the intentions or behavior of an- other".

Trust is not a behavior (e.g., cooperation), or a choice (e.g., taking a risk), but an underlying psychological condition that can cause or result from such actions.
Trust is psychological and important to organizational life.

The conditions that must exist for trust to arise. Risk is one condition considered essential in psychological, sociological, and economic conceptualizations of trust (Coleman, 1990; Rotter, 1967; Williamson, 1993). The second necessary condition of trust is interdependence, where the interests of one party cannot be achieved without reliance upon an- other.

three phases of trust:
(1) building (where trust is formed or reformed),
(2) stability (where trust already exists),
(3) dissolution (where trust declines).
These phases of trust characterize the ebb and flow of relationships

depend on the function of trust, it can be seen as:
an independent variable (cause),
dependent variable (effect), or
interaction variable (a moderating condition for a causal relationship).

Trust can be affected by:
- reputation, particularly the historical trustworthiness of parties in previous interactions with others (Burt & Knez,1996)
- The social context (e.g., networks) that makes reputational effects possible.
- how individuals representing each firm relate to each other (Fichman & Goodman, 1996; Zaheer et al.)

In sum, what do we know about trust? We find that trust is a psychological state composed of the psychological experiences of individuals, dyads, and firms. There is a common underlying definition of trust across scholars from different disciplines, and this basic definition applies across trust's levels of analysis and develop- mental phases. Scholars tend to view trust dynamically but focus on specific phases in developing their conceptual frameworks. Some are interested in trust's beginning, others in its end, and still others in trust as an ongoing and stable phenomenon.

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