TRUST
in
organizations
Bartosz Sławecki
Human & Social Capital
PUE Department of Education and
Personell Development
Lecture s schedule
1. Defining trust.
2. Foundations of trust: societal
(organizational) & personal factors
affecting trust and trustworthiness.
3. The role of trust in modern
society/economy.
4. Measuring trust in organizations.
What is trust?
Trust
" Trust is always doubly relative: to certain
persons (A trusts B), and to certain actions (A
trusts B to do X) (Hardin, 2002)
"  the bet about the future, contingent
actions of others (Sztompka, 1999)
 When trusting, we make the bet that the actions of
others will be beneficial to ourselves: competent
and effective, honest and fair, caring for our
interests.
 Trust always refers to actions (Sztompka, 2007)
Trust is a psychological state comprising the
intention to accept vulnerability based upon
positive expectations of the intentions or
behavior of another. (Rousseau, Sitkin, Buit, and Camerer, 1998)
Trust  the willingness of a party to be
vulnerable to the actions of another party based
on the expectation that the other will perform a
particular action important to the trustor,
irrespective of the ability to monitor or control
that other party. (Mayer, Davis, and Schoorman, 1995)
Trust (community/organization)
"  Trust is the expectation that arises within a
community of regular, honest, and
co-operative behaviour, based on
commonly shared norms, on
the part of other members of that
community (Fukuyama, 1995)
TASK #1. STORIES&
Trust in economics:
trust or risk taking?
" O.E. Williamson (1996): I will take it that X
reposes personal trust in Y if X
" (1) consciously refuses to monitor Y,
" (2) is predisposed to ascribe good intentions to Y
when things go wrong,
" (3) treats Y in a discrete structural way.
 Personal trust is therefore characterized by:
" (1) the absence of monitoring,
" (2) favorable or forgiving predilections,
" (3) discreteness.
TASK #2: CROSS-COUNTRY
ANALYSIS OF TRUST&
TASK #3: FAMILY AND
AQUANTANCES&
Foundations (sources) of trust
1. estimates of trustworthiness;
2. trust culture, widespread and enforced,
shared and constraining normative
expectations to be trustworthy and to be
trustful (Sztompka, 1999).
What makes people trustworthy?
" Trust is a complex compilation of judgments
by the trustor on different characteristics of
the trustee:
 Competence, integrity, consistency,
discreetness, fairness, promise fulfillment,
loyalty, availability, openness, receptivity&
4 attributes of a trustee (Dietz, Hartog, 2007)
" reflects motives and a personal degree of kindness
toward the other party, and a genuine concern for
benevolence
their welfare
" refers to the other party s capabilities to carry out
her/his obligations (in terms of skills and
competence
knowledge)
" involves adherence to a set of principles acceptable
to the other party, encompassing honesty and fair
integrity
treatment, and the avoidance of hypocrisy
" relates specifically to consistency and regularity of
behaviour (and as such is distinct from competence
predictability
or integrity)
Accountability
vs
arbitrariness
Normative
Familarity
coherence
vs
vs
strangeness
anomie
Permanence
Transparency (rich networks)
Trust
vs vs
secrecy culture radical change
(atomization)
What is the role of trust in modern
society/economy/organizations?
TASK #4: LET S IMAGINE&
The role of trust in modern
society/economy/organizations
" enables cooperative behavior;
" promotes adaptive organizational forms,
such as network relations;
" reduces harmful conflict;
" decreases transaction costs;
" facilitates rapid formulation of ad hoc work
groups;
" promotes effective responses to crisis.
What can be done to stimulate trust
building within and between
organizations?
Organizational politicies stimulating
interpersonal trust building (Six, Sorge, 2008)
1. Creation of a culture in which relationships are
important and showing care and concern for the
other person s needs is valued. @
2. Facilitation of relational signalling among
colleagues (vertically and horizontally). @
 Relational signalling skills
 Opportunities for meeting informally
3. Explicit socialization to make newcomers
understand the values and principles of the
organization and how  we do things around here .
4. Mechanisms to manage, match and develop
employees professional competencies.
TASK #4: MEASURING
TRUST&
What s wrong with
questions/statements like:
In general, most people can be
trusted&
The measures examine six different
work-based relationships (Dietz, Hartog, 2007)
1. between an employee/employees and her/his
immediate manager or managers;
2. between an employee and one immediate work
colleague;
3. between an employee and her/his  employer or
with  management representing  the employer
4. between an employee and the rest of the
organisation;
5. between organisational departments;
6. multiple relationships throughout the organisation.