The Role of Trust in Organizational Settings

• Main Authors: DIRKS, Kurt T., FERRIN, Donald L.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2001
• Subjects: Trust; Work Behavior; Work Performance; Attitudes; Business; Organizational Behavior and Theory
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/lkcsb_research/676; https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.12.4.450.10640
• Institution: Singapore Management University

Numerous researchers from various disciplines seem to agree that trust has a number of important benefits for organizations, although they have not necessarily come to agreement on how these benefits occur. In this article, 2 fundamentally different models that describe how trust might have positive effects on attitudes, perceptions, behaviors, and performance outcomes within organizational settings, are explored. In the first section of the model, the model that has dominated the literature is explored: Trust results in direct (main) effects on a variety of outcomes. In the second section of the article an alternative model is developed: Trust facilitates or hinders (i.e., moderates) the effects of other determinants on attitudinal, perceptual, behavioral and performance outcomes via 2 distinct perceptual processes. Lastly, the conditions under which each of the models is most likely to be applicable are discussed.