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Our task is to adopt a multidisciplinary view of trust within and between firms, in an effort to synthesize and give insight into a fundamental construct of organizational science. We seek to identify the shared understandings of trust across disciplines, while recognizing that the divergent meanings scholars bring to the study of trust also can add value.
Disciplinary differences characterizing traditional treatments of trust suggest that inherent conflicts and divergent assumptions are at work (Fichman, 1997). Economists tend to view trust as either calculative (Williamson, 1993) or institutional (North, 1990). Psychologists commonly frame their assessments of trust in terms of attributes of trustors and trustees and focus upon a host of internal cognitions that personal attributes yield (Rotter, 1967; Tyler, 1990; see Deutsch, 1962, for an example of more calculative framing by a psychologist). Sociologists often find trust in socially embedded properties of relationships among people (Granovetter, 1985) or institutions (Zucker, 1986).
These different assumptions are manifest in our divergent use of language. To some scholars the term "contract" refers to a legal means for avoiding risk where trust is not particularly high (Smitka, 1994; Williamson, 1975); to others the word signals a basis for trust resulting from sharing and mutuality (Macauley, 1963; Rousseau, 1995). Notwithstanding our differences in emphasis and approach, if our disciplines are to communicate, we must assume that others are seeking some common meanings, just as we are. Without that assumption, we will not make a good-faith effort to understand one another, referred to by Sabel as the "act of charity" (1993:
111) necessary to produce mutual intelligibility out of a mix of ideas and terms. As a result, our disciplines will continue to work at crosspurposes and will remain fragmented.
A phenomenon as complex as trust requires theory and research methodology that reflect trust's many facets and levels. The features of trust that characterize the set of papers composing this special issue include
multilevel trust (individual, group, firm, and institutional),
trust within and between organizations,
multidisciplinary trust,
the multiple causal roles of trust (trust as a cause, outcome, and moderator),
trust as impacted by organizational change, and
new, emerging forms of trust.
This body of work suggests that trust may be a "meso" concept, integrating microlevel psychological processes and group...