Examining the Independent and Joint Effects of Trustee Competence and Intention on Trust Development

Abstract

Trust research identifies two fundamental trustee attributes as important for trust development, i.e., are intention and competence. In this paper, we examine the independent and joint impact of these two attributes on trust development. Results from an experiment and a field study suggest that trustors tend to prioritise cues about a trustee’s intentions over the trustee’s competence. For instance, we find that if trustors are unsure about a trustee’s intentions, then it does not matter whether the competence cues are positive or negative. Also, incompetent trustees with positive intention are more trusted than competent trustees lacking positive intention. The impact of intention cues is not affected by the lack of trustee competence. We discuss the implications of our findings for both theory and practice.