Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Note on editors
- Note on contributors
- Foreword
- Editors' acknowledgements
- Part I The conceptual challenge of researching trust across different ‘cultural spheres’
- 1 Unravelling the complexities of trust and culture
- 2 Trust differences across national–societal cultures: much to do, or much ado about nothing?
- 3 Towards a context-sensitive approach to researching trust in inter-organizational relationships
- 4 Making sense of trust across cultural contexts
- Part II Trust across different ‘cultural spheres’: inter-organizational studies
- Part III Trust across different ‘cultural spheres’: intra-organizational studies
- Part IV Conclusions and ways forward
- Index
- References
4 - Making sense of trust across cultural contexts
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Note on editors
- Note on contributors
- Foreword
- Editors' acknowledgements
- Part I The conceptual challenge of researching trust across different ‘cultural spheres’
- 1 Unravelling the complexities of trust and culture
- 2 Trust differences across national–societal cultures: much to do, or much ado about nothing?
- 3 Towards a context-sensitive approach to researching trust in inter-organizational relationships
- 4 Making sense of trust across cultural contexts
- Part II Trust across different ‘cultural spheres’: inter-organizational studies
- Part III Trust across different ‘cultural spheres’: intra-organizational studies
- Part IV Conclusions and ways forward
- Index
- References
Summary
Summary
In this chapter we argue that one way of better understanding how people make sense of trust across cultures is by framing it as a social construction. This recognizes the fluidity and unevenness of trust, thereby questioning any notion of trust being fixed or static. Although trust as a social construction has been recognized before, we argue that the fuller consequences of this have not been explored adequately. Within this chapter we aim to address this, conceptualizing trust as constituted within cultural contexts that are themselves ongoing social constructions. We also discuss how actors construct social phenomena and focus on the role of narrative in this process, leading us to conceptualize trust as a narrative process. Subsequently we discuss a possible research agenda to improve our knowledge of trusting across cultures, and propose research questions to help achieve this.
Introduction
This chapter presents an argument that one way of understanding better how people make sense of trust is by framing it as a social construction. By doing this the fluidity and unevenness of trust is recognized, which questions any notion of trust being fixed or static. This leads us to advocate an understanding of trust in its verb form. Trust as a social construction has been recognized before (e.g. Child and Möllering, 2003; Lewis and Weigert, 1985), but we believe the fuller consequences of this have not been adequately explored. We do this and conceptualize trust as constituted within cultural contexts that are themselves ongoing social constructions.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Organizational TrustA Cultural Perspective, pp. 107 - 126Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010
References
2003. ‘Beyond neopositivists, romantics, and localists: a reflexive approach to interviews in organizational research’. Academy of Management Review, 28, 13–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
. 1985. ‘Administrative science as socially constructed truth’. Administrative Science Quarterly, 30, 497–513.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2004. ‘Senior management relationships and trust: an exploratory study’. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 19, 571–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and 1966. The Social Construction of Reality: a Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. London: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
and 2006. ‘Making sense of intercultural collaboration’. International Studies of Management and Organization, 35, 115–32.Google Scholar
2000. ‘Making sense of inquiry sensemaking’. Journal of Management Studies, 37, 45–75.Google Scholar
2004. ‘Authoritative sensemaking in a public inquiry report’. Organization Studies, 25, 95–112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and 1996. ‘Trust and third-party gossip’. In and (eds.) Trust in Organizations: Frontiers of Theory and Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 68–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and 2005. ‘The cultural mosaic: a metatheory for understanding the complexity of culture’. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90, 1128–40.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
and 2003. ‘Contextual confidence and active trust development in the Chinese business environment’. Organization Science, 14, 69–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2003. ‘Reflexive inquiry in organizational research: questions and possibilities’. Human Relations, 56, 983–1003.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2008. ‘Orientations to social constructionism: relationally responsive social constructionism and its implications for knowledge and learning’. Management Learning, 39, 123–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and 2003. ‘A narratological approach to understanding processes of organizing in a UK hospital’. Human Relations, 56, 563–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
1997. Narrating the Organization: Dramas of Institutional Identity. University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
2001. ‘Is it possible to be a constructionist consultant?’ Management Learning, 32, 253–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2003. ‘Forbidden knowledge: organization theory in times of transition’. Management Learning, 34, 353–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and 2006. ‘Measuring trust inside organisations’. Personnel Review, 35, 557–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and 2003. ‘The role of trustworthiness in reducing transaction costs and improving performance: empirical evidence from the United States, Japan, and Korea’. Organization Science, 14, 57–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, and 2004. ‘Co-worker trust as a social catalyst for constructive employee attitudes’. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 19, 608–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
1996. ‘Divergent realities and convergent disappointments in the hierarchic relation: trust and the intuitive auditor at work’. In and (eds.) Trust in Organizations: Frontiers of Theory and Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 216–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
1999. ‘Trust and distrust in organizations: emerging perspectives, enduring questions’. Annual Review of Psychology, 50, 569–98.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
and 1952. ‘Culture: a critical review of concepts and definitions’. Anthropological Papers No. 4, Peabody Museum, Cambridge.Google Scholar
2005. Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
. and 1996. ‘Developing and maintaining trust in work relationships’. In and (eds.) Trust in Organizations: Frontiers of Theory and Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 114–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(ed.) 1998. Qualitative Studies of Organizations: the Administrative Science Quarterly Series in Organizational Theory and Behavior. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
2007. ‘The study of organizations and organizing since 1945’. Organization Studies, 28, 9–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, and 1995. ‘An integrative model of organizational trust’. Academy of Management Review, 20, 709–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and 2000. ‘Strategic management and the philosophy of science: the case for a constructivist methodology’. Strategic Management Journal, 21, 941–53.3.0.CO;2-D>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2001. ‘The nature of trust: from Georg Simmel to a theory of expectation, interpretation and suspension’. Sociology, 35, 403–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, and 2004. ‘Understanding organizational trust – foundations, constellations, and issues of operationalisation’. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 19, 556–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and 2000. ‘Beyond sophisticated stereotyping: cultural sensemaking in context’. Academy of Management Executive, 14, 65–79.Google Scholar
1995. ‘Telling organizational tales: on the role of narrative fiction in the study of organizations’. Organization Studies, 16, 625–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, , and 1998. ‘Not so different after all: a cross-discipline view of trust’. Academy of Management Review, 23, 393–404.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2006. ‘Trust building processes within German–Indonesian cooperation’. Paper presented at the 22nd EGOS Colloquium, 6–8 July 2006. Bergen, Norway.
1989. ‘Intercultural education and training’. In (ed.) Understanding the USA. A Cross-Cultural Perspective. Tübingen: Narr, 305–23.Google Scholar
, and 2004. ‘Strategies as discursive constructions: the case of airline alliances’. Journal of Management Studies, 41, 1–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
1993. ‘Calculativeness, trust and economic organization’. Journal of Law and Economics, 36, 453–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, and 1998. ‘Uncertainty, trust, and commitment formation in the United States and Japan’. American Journal of Sociology, 104, 165–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and 2006. ‘Trust across borders’. Journal of International Business Studies, 37, 21–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- 15
- Cited by