Trust and distrust in organizations pdf

Kurt Dirks and Daniel Skarlicki find that trust between leaders and their followers is established when people perceive a shared background or identity and interact well with their leader. After trust is established, people are willing to assume greater risks and to work harder. In part II, the contributors focus on trust between people in teams and networks. Roxanne Zolin and Pamela Hinds discover that trust is more easily established in geographically dispersed teams when they are able to meet face-to-face initially.

Trust and Distrust in Organizations moves on to an examination of how people create and foster trust and of the effects of power and betrayal on trust. Both are happier and better off the meaning of a Pareto improvement. The contribution by John Darley examines the important question of the role trust plays in organizational performance and success. In order to get the work of the organization done, Darley notes, employees must be willing to comply with organizational rules and directives.

They must perform their role. However, success depends on more than this. It also depends on voluntary efforts by workers, including willingness to undertake actions that fall outside their job description or formal organizational role. One class of such behaviors are the organizational citizenship behaviors OCB investigated by Dirks and Skarlicki. What kind of trust makes a difference in such situations? He notes that some conceptions of trust highlight primarily its calculative dimensions.

I can trust you, moreover, because I keep my powder dry and available should retaliation for any detected breach of trust be required. In contrast, noncalculative modes of trust, he argues, have their roots in the social relations and ties that obtain between par- ties. As Darley points out, noncalculative trust helps us understand the conditions under which people feel that a breach or betrayal of trust has occurred.

It brings to the surface the identity-based elements of trust and distrust. Part II: Trust and Distrust in Teams and Networks In contrast to hierarchical dyadic relationships, in which the parties interact face-to-face and frequently in organizational settings, the chap- ters in part II examine trust and distrust between individuals in group or collective contexts.

Here the parties may be more dispersed geo- graphically or may interact much less frequently face-to-face. In some cases, the actors are anonymous, at least initially. Chapter 7, by Helen Nissenbaum, focuses on interesting issues of trust on the Internet. Research on the psychological and social complexity of life on the Internet is still in its infancy see Wallace and DiMaggio et al.

Nissenbaum begins by suggesting that trust online could improve the quality of social life in many spheres, ranging from personal experiences and communal relationships to civic participation. She observes further that if trust can be secured, more people and institutions will accept and use online resources, leading to more investment in online capabili- ties, resulting in more use, and so on, in a virtuous cycle.

Among the potential obstacles to online trust she notes is the simple fact that for many users and in many parts of the world the Internet remains a rela- tively new and unfamiliar form of social interaction. Not surprisingly, therefore, there may be an inherent wariness in online transactions. A second and in some respects more serious problem concerns what Nissenbaum terms missing identities. Much of the interaction on the Internet is inherently anonymous.

This anonymity is a double-edged sword. Another problematic feature of life online is what the author terms missing personal characteristics. For example, in the online environ- ment we typically lack cues that would tell us something about the sim- ilarity or familiarity to us or the values we share with those with whom we are interacting online.

Finally, the author concludes, the settings or contexts of information exchange on the Internet are themselves somewhat inscrutable. As with other attributes of life online, however, inscrutability is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it is equalizing and can liberate people from status-driven patterns of social interaction dominance, deferral, etc.

In this respect, there is a refreshing sense of egalitarianism about chat rooms. An example is provided by help sites where it is hard to evaluate the expertise of the experts volunteering to offer advice or support.

Given the absence of the usual grounds for trust, Nissenbaum next considers, what foundations or bases are available for securing trust online? What steps can we take to sustain trust?

The answer lies in enhancing the security of transactions on the Internet. One contributing solution is greater sophistication about access control. If we are assured that the collective is populated by responsible parties, interaction is easier and more spontaneous. A second approach is to increase the trans- parency of identities.

Surveillance is a third weapon. Nissenbaum concludes by posing the question, Can trust really be secured online? Is security a foundation for online trust? Nissenbaum points out that security experts are engaged in an almost Sisyphean battle in trying to close off every avenue of attack.

They are breachable. As she reminds us, much of our attention has focused on the danger without, whereas far less sys- tematic attention has been paid to the threat posed by insiders. She reminds us that the centurions at the gate may themselves be corrupt or corruptible, prone to wicked mischievousness.

Pervasive distrust may be hard to avoid in such contexts. Here we move to organizations or their agents as the key actors. Although unexpected, the authors were able to unpack this relationship, discovering that regional institutions were able to facilitate interaction by organizing conferences, meetings, and setting up subcommittees that brought manufacturers and suppliers together. This study thus provides important evidence for the argument that third parties can act as important conduits of trust among parties.

Trust theorists have long argued the benefits of face-to-face interaction and direct experience with others in the trust-building process. As more and more work in organizations is done by individuals who are dispersed geographically, however, it is clear that opportunities for such critical trust-building opportunities will be reduced, and so it becomes important to under- stand the extent to which trust can and does develop in the absence of such experience.

Zolin and Hinds investigate these issues by comparing trust development in geographically collocated versus distributed dyads of student construction-design teams. Using a longitudinal methodol- ogy, they sampled trust levels at several points in time, which enabled them to assess changes in trust levels. Although trust increased more in collocated teams, it also decreased more, consistent with prior research suggesting that trust levels are updated on the basis of direct experience.

Zolin and Hinds also examine how risk perceptions affect trust in geographically dispersed teams. They initially hypothesized that risk would be a significant factor in predicting trust levels for dispersed dyads, so that more risk meant less trust. Their results supported this hypothesis. However, clearly more research is needed to document how to overcome some of the liabilities of distance for the trust-building process. The author reviews recent empirical evidence on the impact of psychological safety on group functioning, using data from a variety of real groups ranging from car- diac surgery teams to teams operating in a manufacturing company.

Many of these same kinds of behaviors, it should be noted, have been implicated in the literature on trust in leaders, suggesting a link between trust and psychological safety. Edmondson also identifies a number of informal, emergent group dynamics that support psycho- logical safety. Having identified some of the antecedents of team psychological safety, Edmondson then considers some of its consequences, especially with regard to how group members are likely to interact with each other.

These include the willingness to seek help, seek feedback, be vocal about errors or concerns, and engage in innovative behavior. To the extent such behaviors facilitate group learning, a strong case can be made for the role psychological safety plays in learning organizations. Future research should explore the nature of the relationship between trust and perceived psychological safety in such organizational con- texts.

Part III: Challenges to Securing and Sustaining Trust Given recent examples of breakdowns in trust and trustworthiness for example, Enron, Tyco, and Arthur Andersen , it seemed appropriate that we conclude the volume with three chapters that address some of the problems of securing and sustaining trust in organizations. In some respects, she notes, it is hardly surprising that managers accord so much importance to being perceived as trustworthy. In her review of the empirical literature, she documents a number of positive effects of per- ceived trustworthiness, including enhanced support for and coopera- tion with trusted managers.

Similarly, individuals are more likely to defer to authorities and accept their views as valid when they feel a high level of trust in those authorities Tyler Having established the importance of perceived trustworthiness, Elsbach then elaborates on some of the tactics that can be used by man- agers to enhance images of their trustworthiness. These include reveal- ing or displaying similarities between oneself and those with whom one works; and revealing dissimilarities between oneself and known untrust- worthy others.

Impression managers trying to persuade others of their trustworthiness can also display cues or present evidence that they are members of a group that has a reputation for competence, benevolence, or integrity. Elsbach notes that impression managers use a variety of physical cues, nonverbal behavior, and language to manipulate impressions of their trustworthiness when interacting with their various constituencies.

Elsbach begins by noting that to possess an image of interpersonal trustworthiness, managers must be perceived by those around them as having a number of attributes, including competence, benevolence, and integrity.

But how do managers achieve such attributions? Several antecedent conditions support perceptions of trustworthiness. These include behavioral factors such as behavioral consistency, accurate and open communication, and demonstrating concern.

There are also sev- eral cognitive factors associated with attributions of trustworthiness, including social categorization and perceived similarity. The ruse worked. Elsbach notes more positively, however, that it is also vitally impor- tant for trustworthy and well-intentioned managers to be able to effec- tively communicate and demonstrate their trustworthiness. In particular, they note that, from an attributional per- spective, contracts act as double-edged swords.

On the one hand, con- tracts provide an assurance mechanism, allowing cooperative behavior to be initiated easily. At the same time, contracts in certain respects make trust harder to develop because they create ambiguity in the attribution of motive. In part II, the contributors focus on trust between people in teams and networks. Roxanne Zolin and Pamela Hinds discover that trust is more easily established in geographically dispersed teams when they are able to meet face-to-face initially.

Trust and Distrust in Organizations moves on to an examination of how people create and foster trust and of the effects of power and betrayal on trust. Kimberly Elsbach reports that managers achieve trust by demonstrating concern, maintaining open communication, and behaving consistently.

Broad in scope, Trust and Distrust in Organizations provides a captivating and insightful look at trust, power, and betrayal, and is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand the underpinnings of trust within a relationship or an organization.