Lecture 7

Question 1

Organisational trust relies, at the core, on the belief in the referent’s (target of trust) assessment of trustworthiness in a corporate setting

Answer 1

• Their ability to perform a specific task (goal-oriented competencies)
• Their benevolence (care => return/exchange service, where everyone has the possibility to buy something and return)
• Their integrity (moral principles)

Question 2

Competence-based trust

Answer 2

How do technology, economy and partnering competencies of the trustee affect our relationship? (e.g., professionalism, results, etc.)

Question 3

Goodwill-based trust

Answer 3

Does the trustee share a common system of values and reciprocity, have regular contacts, and a good reputation? (relates to peripheral cues)

Question 4

Three forms of trust components in interpersonal trust

Answer 4

1. Characteristic-based trust: individual characteristics
2. Process-based trust: past exchanges, possible future exchanges => based on the processes that happened between you and that person
3. Institutional-based trust: structures that facilitate interpersonal trust

Question 5

Three dimensions of perceived trustworthiness (Mayer et al, 1995)

Answer 5

Ability, benevolence, integrity

Ability and integrity hit first when assessing whether one can be trusted.
Then, in the long run, benevolence plays a more important part

Question 6

Trust => risk-taking

Answer 6

Trust also leads to risk-taking, which is indicative of how much entities trust one another. If the risk is too big, trust might not be sufficient to jump the gun. This is why management can use control systems that allow to reduce the perceived risk.

Question 7

Six strategies to rebuild trust

Answer 7

1. Sense-making
   - Problem: lack of responsibility.
   Focus: cognitive and social influence
   How: collective learning and collaboration
   E.g., launching an investigation as to what happened
2. Relational
   - Problem: injustice, outrage of the trustee.
   Focus: emotions and social rituals by showing remorse and redemption. Apologising as an admission of wrongdoing, that needs to be timely, recognise internal responsibility, are genuine and “unique” (not repeated).

3.Regulation and controls
- Problem: injustice, outrage of the trustee
Focus: organization and institutional environment.
How: more formal control, creation of entities that can check others.

4.Ethical culture: ethical laissez-aller that needs checking in the organization. It rarely is about a “simple” reminder if you already are in a negative ethical culture.
How: informal organization and broader cultural context, more informal control

5.Transparency
- Problem: trust is broken, and the trustee cannot know why (i.e., the risk was not visible)
Focus: reporting and monitoring by sharing information and accountability

6. Transference
   Problem: trust is broken, and you need help in restoring it quickly. Focus: third party involvement, by reputation spill-over (a societal pillar perceived as trustworthy is involved). For instance, banks failing being supported by the governments during financial crises. Can be a problem if the societal pillar themselves are perceived as untrustworthy.

Question 8

Reciprocal trust (Serva et al, 2005)

Answer 8

Context: a classroom of system design students whose task is to design a website in teams. Students actually had 2 tasks:
- Development role
- Management role
And this would last on 40 days.
Management = putting goals to attain for the development team

They also measured risk-taking behaviour:
- Development: scoping the project and formalising inter-team procedures
- Management: delegating and monitoring