One of the key questions we wanted to explore in this book is whether trust is different in distinct contexts. Here we examine the issue of trust in eight different applied settings to consider more explicitly the salience of trust and the different aspects that matter. We have tried to select contexts that have been hit by dramatic changes or scandals that have changed and to some degree eroded public trust. We indicate in our short review of each chapter their synergies with other chapters, but it is evident that all of the chapters in the preceding part on trust and its repair would be of interest to readers.
We start the part with a context in which trust is a germane issue both at interpersonal but also institutional levels – that of health. The insights offered are further enhanced as it is written by regulators for whom the consequences of trust and its breach are particularly salient. Samantha Peters, CEO of the UK’s General Optical Council, and Douglas Bilton, from the UK’s Professional Standards Authority, consider the significance of trust in the health context. They outline how, in healthcare, trust is a very germane concern due to the high stakes for all the individuals involved (patients, professionals and organizations), the distinct imbalances of power among the actors, and the elevated levels of risks that can be involved. These risks often have to be weighed up in situations where there are few alternatives. Reviewing the literature on trust in this context, they also bring to life the breadth of concerns through two cases, one concerning the dangerous and harmful practices of an Australian physician, Dr Harry Bailey, and his use of deep sleep therapy, and the second, Dr Harold Shipman, a UK General Practitioner who murdered fifteen patients, a case which resulted in a national public inquiry, extensive changes to regulation and had a profound impact on British health policy. The two cases demonstrate the fluidity of transfer of trust between the personal and the impersonal, and how unscrupulous and poorly monitored practitioners can secure misplaced and unwarranted trust. A trust frame is used to examine these two cases and draws attention to the importance of trust to and for this context.
The second chapter in this part examines trust within a very different but not less important context – finance. Robert F. Hurley looks at the events of the Global Financial Crisis and examines the loss of trust in banks. He considers the types of violation by universal banks and argues that it was the culmination of an ongoing erosion of organizational trust as banks have sought to adapt to challenges in their competitive environments. He puts the ongoing breach of trust of these organizations into the context of wider organizational dynamics which have seen subtle, more potentially nefarious changes to behaviours for those employed in this sector. Through this chapter he argues for changes in our understanding of trust in banks, and makes suggestions for how trustworthiness might be improved in this critical sector going forward.
Frédérique Six explores the issue of the role of trust in professions. This is a pertinent context in which to look at those who are trusted due to their unique expert knowledge, but also their perceived commitment to public service and societal values. Increasingly we have seen politicians in many countries downplaying the importance and influence of expertise and fact-based arguments, instead offering a fact-light political rhetoric. These professionals are often employed in organizations that has undergone radical austerity-focused change and so the nature of their work, and its value for and to society, has dramatically shifted and in many cases reduced. Six explores the challenges to trust in public professionals and their professions to identify two distinct patterns in the evolution of change to the relationships between professionals and their employers and regulators over the past decades: one is the adversarial struggle between professionals’ desire for autonomy and managerial control; and the second, a more collaborative pattern which retains autonomy for professionals alongside managerial control. There are synergies between this chapter and Chapter 27 by Raaphorst and Van de Walle, on trust in and by the public sector and to Chapter 29 by Long and Weibel, a review of trust and control.
In Chapter 21, Kim Mather looks at employment relations, a context which is regarded by some as having inherently low trust due to the ways work is contractually and practically organized. Using the UK context, she considers trust matters in the interactions between employers, workers, trade unions and state policy. She discusses the role of distinct employment contracts in terms of the growth of casualized employment, either zero-hours or self-employment, and the impact on organizational trust. Her chapter draws attention to concepts of power, control and job regulation as a means of showing how and why employee-employer trust might be low and still declining. This chapter links to later chapters including Chapter 28 by Searle, on Human Resource Management and trust, and Chapter 29 by Long and Weibel, on control and trust.
Lisa van der Werff, Colette Real and Theodore G. Lynn turn our attention in Chapter 22 to the question of trust in the online world and consider individual trust and the internet by highlighting salient concerns at three distinct levels: interpersonal, organizational and system trust. Setting the stage for how technology is increasingly mediating both our personal and our professional relationships, they review the literature to identify similarities and differences of trust in this virtual context. There are obvious connections with Chapter 3 by Blomqvist and Cook, on swift trust.
Attention then focuses on Trust in the entrepreneurial process in Trenton A. Williams and Dean A. Shepherd’s chapter, which offers both a distinct topic and a distinct perspective – considering trust at specific stages of an organization’s life cycle. Through their specific lens, they illuminate the start of an organization and discuss the changes to the importance and types of trust during the defined stages of the entrepreneurial processes. This chapter also has synergies with Chapter 3 by Blomqvist and Cook, on swift trust.
Our penultimate context discusses trust in safety-critical contexts, with Brian C. Gunia, Sharon H. Kim and Kathleen M. Sutcliffe reviewing concerns of trust and distrust. Beginning with the German Wings disaster, this chapter highlights the impacts of low trust and distrust. Interestingly they note how, in this safety-critical domain, trust and distrust are not positioned as separate dimensions; instead, terms denoting low trust and distrust tend to be used interchangeably. Through their review of the literature, they identify both the positive and the negative roles that trust and these conceptually opposite factors play. They outline the key mechanism underlying these roles. This chapter has links to others including Chapter 12 by Bachmann, on trust in institutions, and Chapter 4 by Sitkin and Bijlsma-Frankema, on distrust and Chapter 16 by Gillespie and Siebert, on organizational-level trust repair.
The last chapter in this applied part considers trust in the food context, with Lovisa Näslund and Fergus Lyon outlining the importance of trust in the distinct roles and relationships for consumers, producers but also retailers. Given the recent scandals within this sector, they show the range of ways that trust matters in and for this context. Their chapter also has important synergies with others, such as Chapter 13 by Poppo and Cheng, on contracts and Chapter 29 by Long and Weibel, on control and trust. They further highlight the often critical role of interpersonal trust (see Chapter 5 by Lyu and Ferrin).