Organizational Trust: Philosophical Perspectives and Conceptual Definitions

Author(s): F. David Schoorman, Roger C. Mayer and James H. Davis

Source: The Academy of Management Review , Apr., 1996, Vol. 21, No. 2 (Apr., 1996),
pp. 337-340
Published by: Academy of Management

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 1996 Dialogue 337

change that leads to more effective behavior. Such change may require
persuasive communication (i.e., achieving organizational synergy re-
quires more than dispassionate transmission of information). Stakehold-
ers' communication often involves persuasion that stimulates understand-
ing, creativity, and insight.
These articles also need a stronger analysis of the problems of extend-
ing trust to organizations and groups rather than only to specific people.
Trust implies confidence that some member (or several members) of a
group or an organization will take initiatives to fulfill expectations. Trust
in an organization or a group is trust that specific people will perform. The
chances of fulfilling expectations will vary, depending on which specific
individuals in the organization or group are charged with performance.
If the responsible individuals are changed, then trust levels may need to
be changed.

REFERENCES

Hosmer, L. T. 1995. Trust: The connecting link between organizational theory and philosophi-
cal ethics. Academy of Management Review, 20: 379-403.

Jones, T. M. 1995. Instrumental stakeholder theory: A synthesis of ethics and economics.

Academy of Management Review, 20: 404-437.

Mayer, R. C., Davis, J. H., & Schoorman, F. D. 1995. An integrative model of organization trust.
Academy of Management Review, 20: 709-734.

Perloff, R. M. 1993. The dynamics of persuasion. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Dillard B. Tinsley

Organizational Trust: Philosophical Perspectives and

Conceptual Definitions

In this dialogue, we address two dialogue comments about our recent

article on trust in organizations. The first comment by Wekselberg deals
with our choice of philosophical perspective and the resulting implications
for accurately representing the social context of trust. In the second,
Tinsley raises questions about conceptual definitions in a model of trust,
the relationships among variables, and the utility of alternate definitions.
Given the lack of overlap in these dialogues, we will address each in turn.
Social Influence, Social Interaction, and Social Psychology in the Study
of Trust

Wekselberg's dialogue raises questions about our model of organiza-

tional trust at both a philosophical level and a practical level. At a philo-
sophical level, Wekselberg correctly observes that we use a social influ-
ence perspective and argues that we should have adopted a social

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338 Academy of Management Review April

interaction perspective. We would like to note that there is no dispute that

the social influence perspective has always been the dominant, main-
stream perspective of social psychology (Allport, 1954). In fact, Eskola (1988:
14), who is cited by Wekselberg as an advocate of the social interaction
perspective, acknowledged that "The study of social influence is undoubt-
edly one of the most important research traditions of social psychology."
We also believe that the choice between the social influence and the social
interaction perspectives presented by Wekselberg as alternate choices is
a false dichotomy. These are not mutually exclusive approaches to this
type of research. We believe that the examination of relationships at
the dyadic level (the social influence perspective) is a critical step to
understanding the concept of trust. Indeed, there are many social aspects
that are inherent in this approach. We agree with Wekselberg that it would
be a valuable extension of our work to incorporate a social interaction
perspective that examines the broader social context in which trust occurs.
Our view that these perspectives are not mutally exclusive is consistent
with that articulated by Eskola. In discussing the advantages of incorporat-
ing a social interaction perspective, he observed that "those research
traditions within social psychology whose assumptions do not refer to
individuals' reactions only are much better equipped" (1988: 28, emphasis
added). One point of difficulty that we have in the incorporation of the
social interaction perspective is the acceptance that there is an objective
social reality that has an impact on behavior. Although we do not wish
to invoke any radical phenomenology assumptions, we have taken the
general perspective that the social reality of the participants is a function
of their perception of the social reality. Thus, as Wekselberg notes, our
measures of the characteristics of the trustee are based on the trustor's
perceptions of those characteristics. We strongly believe that this perspec-
tive is important in order to account for why a particular trustee might be
highly trusted by one trustor but not by another. Finally, it seems that the
major objection raised by Eskola (and mentioned by Wekselberg) to the
use of the social influence perspective is based on the observation that
most social psychological research that is based on this perspective relies
on laboratory experiments to test its hypotheses. He argued that the labora-
tory creates a unique social context that makes results obtained in these
experimental settings not generalizable to the social behavior that might
occur outside the laboratory. We agree with this point of view and have
not advocated the testing of our model in the laboratory. In fact, we believe
that research that focuses on long-term relationships should not be con-
ducted in the artificial, short-term setting of the laboratory. We have now
conducted several empirical studies based on our model of trust, and we
can report that none of them have been laboratory studies.
At a practical level, we agree with Wekselberg that the social context
in which trust occurs can have an important impact on the model. (Indeed,
in an earlier version of this article, we attempted to explicate all of the
contextual variables that might influence the dyadic model, but time and

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 1996 Dialogue 339

space constraints eventually relegated a more thorough development of

these issues to a subsequent effort.) For example, the organization's culture
would have an important impact on levels of trust that are likely to develop.
An organization's culture that is hierarchical and autocratic and relies
exclusively on top-down communication is not likely to develop high trust
between supervisors and subordinates. Wekselberg's example of a partici-
pative culture being likely to influence the levels of trust is completely
consistent with this view. However, this does not change any of the vari-
ables in the dyadic model; it merely adds moderators to adjust for the
context. We certainly would welcome efforts by scholars in this field to
elaborate on the contextual variables that can have an impact on the
development of trust in relationships.

Including Versus Excluding Ability from the Definition of Trust

We see a great deal of convergence between the views expressed

by Tinsley and our article. We agree that ability or competence is an im-
portant concept in this domain, as are integrity and benevolence. Although
we struggled at length with the conceptual differences between benevo-
lence and integrity, we concluded that all three concepts are theoretically
distinct. We do not agree that benevolence has ethical connotations. We
view benevolence as a quality of a relationship and believe that it would
be more influential (than integrity) as an antecedent of trust in a long-
term relationship. Tinsley advocates calling benevolence and integrity
trust and retaining ability as an independent concept (renamed capabili-
ties) outside the definition of trust. Perhaps this is a semantic issue, but
our decision to treat all three as contributors to trust was based on our
view that they have an additive quality in determining the level of trust.
Tinsley's example of why it is useful to keep them separate is an interest-
ing one: "Certain people with high capabilities are not to be trusted [ethi-
cally based definition]. Conversely, some trustworthy people have low
capabilities and are ineffective." To expand on this example, imagine a
manager who is faced with selecting one of two employees to be responsi-
ble for the plant while he or she is away. One employee is very high in
ability/competence but has left some questions in the manager's mind
about ethically based trust; the other employee has impeccable ethically
based trust, but has raised some questions in the manager's mind about
his or her competence. Can we predict who will be left in charge? We
believe that the manager will consider all of these factors before making
a choice, and the final choice is a statement about trust. Thus, we decided
to represent the factors as additive in contributing to trust. We agree that
separation of ethical aspects and capabilities can be useful for certain
research questions. We also argue that for other questions they act in a
cumulative manner.
Tinsley draws on the communication literature to advocate the use
of the concept of source credibility as the cumulative effect of ethically
based trust and capabilities. Tinsley argues that "as the natures of trust-

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 340 Academy of Management Review April

worthiness and capabilities become realistically defined, they can be

integrated together" and that the models presented by Hosmer and Jones
would both be enhanced by a model that "integrates capabilities with
trust." Although Tinsley's commentary uses trust and trustworthiness in-
terchangeably, the integration he describes (called source credibility) is
what we collectively call characteristics of the trustee. We believe that
trust also should include a consideration of characteristics of the trustor
(i.e., propensity). Both Tinsley's and Wekselberg's proposed redefinitions
of trust also ignore the role of risk, an important component in a model
of trust, which is captured in our definition of trust through vulnerability.
We do not agree with Tinsley's characterization of our model as one
that sees "trust as a reliance upon ethical behavior by others." Instead,
our model allows for the possibility of "trust between thieves," a situation
where benevolence and ability are the critical antecedents. Adherence to
any commonly accepted, normative ethical rules for conduct is not essen-
tial to our concept of trust.
We are, however, in complete agreement with Tinsley that the model
of trust needs to be extended to the group and organization levels of
analysis. The importance of workgroups trusting each other and organiza-
tions that are in supplier-customer relationships developing a level of
trust cannot be overstated. In the development of our model of dyadic
trust, we were very conscious of this needed extension and attempted to
develop a model that would form the basis for such extensions.

REFERENCES

Allport, G. 1954. The historical background of modern social psychology. In G. Lindze

Handbook of social psychology, vol. 1. Cambridge, MA: Addison-Wesley.

Eskola, A. 1988. How many social psychologies are there? In A. Eskola (Ed.), Blind alleys in
social psychology: A search for ways out: 11-67. Amsterdam: North-Holland.

F. David Schoorman
Roger C. Mayer
James H. Davis

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

House, Shane, and Herold (1996) argued that dispositional research

is very much alive. Indeed, it seems that our earlier dialogue (Davis-
Blake & Pfeffer, 1989) has stimulated more (and sometimes better) research
on dispositions. However, not all of the recent studies on dispositions
address the problems we identified earlier. Moreover, even though House
and colleagues (1996) criticized several of our arguments, they actually
agreed with many of our suggestions for improving dispositional research!

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