Trust and Distrust across Organizational Contexts: Dilemmas and Approaches

by Roderick M. Kramer, Karen S. Cook

Overview

The effective functioning of a democratic society—including social, business, and political interactions—largely depends on trust. Yet trust remains a fragile and elusive resource in many of the organizations that make up society's building blocks. In their timely volume, Trust and Distrust in Organizations, editors Roderick M. Kramer and Karen S. Cook have compiled the most important research on trust in organizations, illuminating the complex nature of how trust develops, functions, and often is thwarted in organizational settings. With contributions from social psychologists, sociologists, political scientists, economists, and organizational theorists, the volume examines trust and distrust within a variety of settings—from employer-employee and doctor-patient relationships, to geographically dispersed work teams and virtual teams on the internet.

Trust and Distrust in Organizations opens with an in-depth examination of hierarchical relationships to determine how trust is established and maintained between people with unequal power. 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. Kimberly Elsbach reports that managers achieve trust by demonstrating concern, maintaining open communication, and behaving consistently. The final chapter by Roderick Kramer and Dana Gavrieli includes recently declassified data from secret conversations between President Lyndon Johnson and his advisors that provide a rich window into a leader’s struggles with problems of trust and distrust in his administration.

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.

A Volume in the Russell Sage Foundation Series on Trust

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780871544858
Publisher:	Russell Sage Foundation
Publication date:	04/28/2004
Series:	Russell Sage Foundation Series on Trust Series
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	393
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

RODERICK M. KRAMER is the William R. Kimball Professor of Organizational Behavior in the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University.

KAREN S. COOK is Ray Lyman Wilbur Professor of Sociology, Stanford University.

Table of Contents

Contributors xi Chapter 1 Trust and Distrust in Organizations: Dilemmas and Approaches 1 Roderick M. Kramer and Karen S. Cook PART I TRUST AND HIERARCHY 19 Chapter 2 Trust in Leaders: Existing Research and Emerging Issues 21 Kurt T. Dirks and Daniel P. Skarlicki Chapter 3 Supervisors as Trust Brokers in Social-Work Bureaucracies 41 John Brehm and Scott Gates Chapter 4 Trust and Distrust in Patient-Physician Relationships: Perceived Determinants of High- and Low-Trust Relationships in Managed-Care Settings 65 Karen S. Cook, Roderick M. Kramer, David H. Thom, Irena Stepanikova, Stefanie Bailey Mollborn, and Robin M. Cooper Chapter 5 Monitoring, Rules, and the Control Paradox: Can the Good Soldier Svejk Be Trusted? 99 Gary J. Miller Chapter 6 Commitment, Trust, and Worker Effort Expenditure in Organizations 127 John M. Darley PART II TRUST AND DISTRUST IN TEAMS AND NETWORKS 153 Chapter 7 Will Security Enhance Trust Online, or Supplant It? 155 Helen Nissenbaum Chapter 8 Architects of Trust: The Role of Network Facilitators in Geographical Clusters 189 Bill McEvily and Akbar Zaheer Chapter 9 Trust in Context: The Development of Interpersonal Trust in Geographically Distributed Work 214 Roxanne Zolin and Pamela J. Hinds Chapter 10 Psychological Safety, Trust, and Learning in Organizations: A Group-Level Lens 239 Amy C. Edmondson PART III CHALLENGES TO SECURING AND SUSTAINING TRUST 273 Chapter 11 Managing Images of Trustworthiness in Organizations 275 Kimberly D. Elsbach Chapter 12 Paradoxes of Trust: Empirical and Theoretical Departures from a Traditional Model 293 J. Keith Murnighan, Deepak Malhotra, and J. Mark Weber Chapter 13 Untangling the Knot of Trust and Betrayal 327 Sandra L. Robinson, Kurt T. Dirks, and Hakan Ozcelik Chapter 14 Power, Uncertainty, and the Amplification of Doubt: An Archival Study of Suspicion Inside the Oval Office 342 Roderick M. Kramer and Dana A. Gavrieli Index 371