Foundations of Organizational Trust: What Matters to Different Stakeholders?

Abstract

Prior research on organizational trust has not rigorously examined the context specificity of trust nor distinguished between the potentially varying dimensions along which different stakeholders base their trust. As a result, dominant conceptualizations of organizational trust are overly generalized. Building on existing research on organizational trust and stakeholder theory, we introduce a more nuanced perspective on the nature of organizational trust. We develop a framework that distinguishes between organizational stakeholders along two dimensions: depth of the relationship (deep or shallow) and locus (internal or external). The framework identifies which of six dimensions of trustworthiness (benevolence, integrity, managerial competence, technical competence, transparency, and identification) will be relevant to which stakeholder type. We test the predictions of our framework using original survey data from 1,298 respondents across four stakeholder groups from four different organizations. The results reveal that the relevant dimensions of trustworthiness vary systematically across different stakeholder types and provide strong support for the validity of the depth and locus dimensions.

Power decreases trust in social exchange

“…Interestingly, it is only the low-power actor's hope for the powerful partner's benevolence-but not the partner's ability or integrity-that leads to increased trusting behavior. This finding resonates with recent research emphasizing that the relevance of individual trustworthiness dimensions differs across settings (46). We add to this work the notion that benevolence is a more relevant trustworthiness dimension than either ability or integrity when predicting trust decisions based on power differentials.…”

The dimensionality of trust-relevant constructs in four institutional domains: results from confirmatory factor analyses

“…However, some have suggested other categories are also needed. For example, Pirson and Malhotra (2011) argue that, although Mayer et al include it as part of integrity, "identification" based on perception of shared values is a separate form of trustworthiness that requires time to develop (see also Lewicki & Bunker, 1995 (Tyler & Huo, 2002). For example, an item used in our research to assess cynical beliefs was " [Institution] does not protect my interests.…”

End users’ trust in data repositories: definition and influences on trust development

“…Mayer et al (1995) argued that these attributes are universally relevant and have been adopted by many researchers as a starting point to develop their own framework. Pirson and Malhotra (2011) slightly modified this framework in the context of stakeholders' trust in organizations and provided a new framework with four attributes: identification, integrity, benevolence, and transparency. Integrity is the belief that an organization will act fairly and ethically; benevolence is the belief that an organization is concerned with the stakeholders' well-being; identification refers to stakeholders' understanding of an organization's intention or interests based on shared values and commitment (Lewicki and Bunker 1995; and transparency refers to perceived willingness to share trust-related information with stakeholders.…”

“…Similarly, PB12 stated, ''If they stopped operating or were no longer able to archive as much data as they did in the past, then, well, the data would be lost''. Understanding repositories' commitment to society named identification by Pirson and Malhotra (2011), PB16, PA04, PA14, and PB12 expressed their faith in the repositories' integrity.…”