Integrity-based Trust Research Articles

Effects of competence- and integrity-based trust on public acceptability of renewable energy projects in China and the Netherlands

Acceptability of renewable energy projects depends on the trust people have in agents responsible for those projects. Two dimensions of trust are relevant in this respect: competence-based and integrity-based trust. Yet, the unique and interaction effects of these two dimensions of trust on project acceptability are not well understood. We conducted two experimental studies to test these effects in China and the Netherlands. As expected, higher integrity-based trust in responsible agents led to higher project acceptability in both countries. Notably, these effects were independent of the level of competence-based trust. Competence-based trust enhanced project acceptability only in China and only when integrity-based trust was low. Mediation analyses further showed that (part of) the effects of both dimensions of trust on project acceptability could be explained by people's perceptions of how the decisions were made, in both countries. Results suggest that integrity-based trust has a more profound effect on project acceptability.

Interpersonal trust and employee knowledge sharing behavior

PurposeThe main purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of benevolence-based, competence-based and integrity-based trust in peers on the employees’ voluntary knowledge contribution and knowledge seeking with them. In addition, this study aims to explore how engaging in knowledge-contribution and knowledge-seeking behavior with peers influences an individual’s creative performance at work.Design/methodology/approachA questionnaire-based survey was used and data were collected from 401 professionals working in information technology companies. Structural equation modeling was used to test the hypotheses.FindingsBenevolence-based trust and competence-based trust positively influence the extent to which individuals voluntarily engage in knowledge contribution and knowledge seeking with peers. Contrary to expectations, integrity-based trust has a negative effect on knowledge-seeking behavior at workplace. The results also provide evidence for a significant positive relationship between both types of knowledge sharing behavior and employees’ creative performance.Originality/valueThe present study differs from existing studies by offering a theoretical model that integrates different types of knowledge sharing, its antecedents and the differential impact on employee creativity. The model incorporates the knowledge-seeking dimension of individual knowledge sharing behavior, which has received relatively less attention in extant literature, and provides a conceptual comparison of different behavioral contexts in a single study. While prior studies have predominantly explored the antecedents of knowledge sharing, this study is among the few that have simultaneously looked into the outcomes of knowledge sharing at individual level.

The function of ability, benevolence, and integrity-based trust in innovation networks

ABSTRACT This study contributes to the understanding of how trust based on perceived ability, benevolence, and integrity functions in networks. It adopts a mixed-method approach with quantitative and qualitative data from five Norwegian innovation networks. The study demonstrates how trust based on perceived benevolence, ability, and integrity influences different aspects of network interaction and network outcomes against the background of the network members’ perceptions of risk. Moreover, it finds that these dimensions of trust function differently at the inter-organisational and at the network level. The former level here concerns trust between the organisations in the network, while the latter concerns trust in the network more generally. Benevolence-based trust is identified as particularly salient at both levels for promoting open and honest communication as well as knowledge sharing, enabling both more successful collaboration in general, and more innovation specifically.

I May Not Agree With You, but I Trust You: Caring About Social Issues Signals Integrity

What characteristics of an individual signal trustworthiness to other people? I propose that individuals who care about contentious social issues signal to observers that they have integrity and thus can be trusted. Critically, this signal conveys trustworthiness whether or not the target and the observer hold the same view on the issue. Five studies (N = 3,817) demonstrated the predicted effect of caring on integrity-based trust (Studies 1, 2, 3a, 3b, and 4)—even in cases of strong disagreement—across a variety of issues (Study 1) and when behavioral outcomes with real stakes were used (Studies 3a and 3b). This effect largely results from a perception of low-caring targets as particularly untrustworthy (Study 2). Additionally, participants trusted targets with staunchly opposing views about an issue even though they simultaneously disliked them (Study 4). These findings have important implications for how people form impressions of others and speak to potential interventions to help mitigate the growing ideological divide.

How to use apology and compensation to repair competence-versus integrity-based trust violations in e-commerce

Abstract Drawing on the theory of “attribution and economic man”, this study examines the trust repair implications of using different apology-types and compensation-types simultaneously after different trust violations in e-commerce. Based on a 2 × 2 × 2 experimental design involving 440 participants, several key findings were obtained. The results revealed that an apology with internal attribution is more effective in repairing trust than apologies with external attribution for integrity-based trust violations. In contrast, an apology with external attribution is more effective in repairing trust than apologies with internal attribution for competence-based trust violations. Both of these conclusions hold under the condition of equal compensation. The results also revealed that overcompensation repairs trust more effectively than equal compensation only when the mistrusted party apologized with an internal attribution for a competence-based trust violation or the mistrusted party apologized with an external attribution for integrity-based trust violations. This study concludes with implications and suggestions for future research.

The Role of Trust in Equity-based Crowdfunding Investment Decisions

Scholars are increasingly exploring crowdfunding, a novel and rapidly growing source of new venture financing. A key part of this research has sought to explain what factors are important to the crowdfunding investment decision. In this study, we seek to contribute to research concerning investor decision-making by exploring how a founder’s ability to communicate reasons for investors to trust them influences equity-based crowdfunders’ investment likelihood. Specifically, we consider the research question: “Do founders’ assertions about their competence and integrity persuade crowdfunders to contribute capital to their venture in exchange for equity?” We also incorporate founders’ demographic characteristics as boundary conditions that may influence whether investors can form competence- and integrity-based trust with founders. We develop theory and arguments to uncover how founders’ assertions about their trustworthiness influence investment likelihood and if those assertions influence certain types of people more than others.

Communication after an integrity-based trust violation: How organizational account giving affects trust

How can an organization repair trust through communication after an ethical failure? This study examines how trust is repaired after an integrity-based trust violation using three different accounts: apology, excuse, and refusal. In our approach, we rely on two strands of attribution theory, which suggests that different attributions for responsibility and credibility affect trust. An experiment with n = 368 was conducted to explore trust repair effectiveness of apology versus refusal and apology versus excuse after an integrity-based trust violation. Results revealed apology as a double-edged sword; it repairs trust more successfully than refusal and excuse because it is evaluated as more credible. However, it is less successful than refusal and excuse because it is evaluated as more responsible.

Fraud and Market Participation: Social Relations as a Moderator of Organizational Misconduct

This paper extends organizational research on distrust to explain the effects of organizational misconduct on continued market participation after a fraud. I argue that social relations between fraud victims and perpetrators insulate against the formation and diffusion of distrust. Variation in market participation after a fraud occurs because victims who belong to the perpetrator’s social group are more likely to attribute blame to the organization that committed the fraud, while victims from social out-groups are more likely to generalize blame to the perpetrator’s social group and subsequently avoid other organizations and institutions governed by its members. The empirical setting is Kenya’s ethnically diverse Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE), from which the country’s largest stockbrokerage was expelled in 2008 after defrauding one-quarter of its 100,000 clients. Analysis of NSE data on trades for victimized and non-victimized investors, as well as surnames that identify investors’ ethnicities, shows that clients from the same ethnic group as leaders of the corrupt brokerage are more likely than clients from rival ethnic groups to continue to participate in the market after a fraud and more likely to choose another intermediary operated by members of their ethnic group. But results also show that some victims invest more after the fraud and use less-trustworthy intermediaries to do so. This suggests that integrity-based trust may be a less effective coordination device in arm’s-length market transactions than in interpersonal transactions. A key implication is that misconduct does not simply reduce average participation in a market; it changes the market’s composition by filtering out diverse social groups that are more likely to demand stronger governance standards.

Fibbing About Your Feelings: The Relationship between Emotional Misrepresentation and Trust

Across two pilot studies, and six main experiments, I examine the relationship between emotional misrepresentation and interpersonal trust. I focus on one’s decision to either feign happiness or express authentic negative emotion when one is experiencing distress due to challenging personal circumstances. I find that emotional misrepresentation sends both positive and negative signals about one’s character, and thus has opposing effects on different trusting decisions. Emotional misrepresentation signals self-control and resilience, as well as dishonesty and distrust of others. As a result, individuals who misrepresent their emotions engender high competence-based trust (e.g., they are more likely to be trusted with difficult workplace tasks) but they engender low integrity-based trust (e.g., they are less likely to be trusted to provide their honest feedback to others). I explore these effects and their boundaries across a range of samples, contexts, and manipulations. This research unearths the circumstances in which self-expression helps versus harms interpersonal and workplace relationships, explores the antecedents and consequences of distinct dimensions of trust, and documents new consequences of inauthenticity.

An investigation into internal structure of relationship quality

There could be witnessed an increasing tendency, in recent research, of using relationship quality as an all-inclusive/higher order construct that may lead to the loss of certain useful information. The paper highlights the need and importance for research to take into consideration the internal structure of relationship quality construct. With a theory-building objective, variance-based structural equation modelling (using PLS-logic) has been performed over a dataset of 284 dyadic supplier-buyer relationships. The results provide useful insights into the dynamics of downstream relationships. First, despite there has been some empirical evidence for a sequential link among three determinants of relationship quality, yet, both satisfaction and trust account for little variations in commitment. Second, the competence-based trust (like the integrity-based trust) largely emerges from higher social satisfaction instead of the economic satisfaction. Third, the social rewards matter more to the exchange partners than the economic rewards in fostering rationality-based commitment.

Distrust and Market Participation

This paper extends organizational research on distrust to explain the effects of organizational misconduct on continued market participation. My main argument is that social relations between fraud victims and perpetrators insulate against the formation and diffusion of distrust. Variation in post-fraud market participation arises because victims who belong to the perpetrator’s social group are more likely to attribute blame to the organization that committed it, while victims from social out-groups are more likely to generalize blame to the perpetrator’s social group and subsequently avoid other organizations and institutions governed by its members. The empirical setting is Kenya’s ethnically diverse Nairobi Securities Exchange, where the country’s largest stockbrokerage was expelled in 2008 after defrauding one-quarter of its 100,000 clients. NSE databases record all trades for victimized and non-victimized investors as well as surnames which identify investors’ ethnicities. Results show that clients who are coethnic with the corrupt brokerage are more likely than clients from rival ethnic groups to continue to participate in the market post-fraud and more likely to choose another coethnic intermediary. However, some victims employ less trusted intermediaries to enact higher levels of future investing, suggesting that integrity-based trust may be a less effective coordination device in arm’s length market transactions compared to inter-personal transactions. A key implication is that misconduct does not simply reduce average participation in a market it changes its composition by filtering out diverse social groups more likely to demand stronger governance standards.

The Impact of Crisis Response Strategy, Crisis Type, and Corporate Social Responsibility on Post-crisis Consumer Trust and Purchase Intention

Organisational crises can have deleterious consequences for organisational reputation and sales. Hence, one exigent question pertains to the effects of a company’s action prior to the crisis and its crisis response on customers’ post-crisis attitude and behavioural intention. To address that question, a scenario-based 2 (rebuild versus diminish response strategy) × 2 (product-harm versus moral-harm crisis) × 2 (institutional versus promotional CSR program) experiment was conducted with 304 Dutch respondents. Main effects were found for all independent variables. Our research shows that a rebuilding strategy has a more positive effect on benevolence- and integrity-based trust. A product-harm crisis leads to a significant larger drop in ability-based trust and in purchase intention, while a moral-harm crisis damages more strongly integrity-based trust in the organisation. Furthermore, an institutional CSR program is advantageous for all outcome variables. Additionally, an interaction effect between crisis type and crisis response strategy is found. Results of the study have important practical implications, especially that companies must employ the most appropriate crisis communication strategy according to the type of crisis that confronts them.

Can winning take care of everything? A longitudinal assessment of post-transgression actions on repairing trust in an athlete endorser

A celebrity athlete’s transgression damages the public’s trust in that celebrity. However, little is known about whether demonstrating an outstanding performance after the transgression mitigates the negative consequence of that transgression. It also remains unexplored whether engaging in reparation can restore consumer trust and generate forgiveness. Taking a longitudinal approach, we found that post-transgression performance slightly increased competence-based trust but had no impact on increasing integrity-based trust and forgiveness. However, post-transgression reparation efforts enhanced both integrity-based trust and forgiveness over time. Findings also suggest that performance has little impact on generating forgiveness, countering the popular notion that winning takes care of everything.

Competence- and Integrity-Based Trust in Interorganizational Relationships: Which Matters More?

Trust is an important factor for managing transaction costs within interorganizational relationships (IORs). Research on trust indicates that separate dimensions of trust arise from a partner’s competence (i.e., technical skills, experience, and reliability) and integrity (i.e., motives, honesty, and character), and that these dimensions have potentially unique effects. Because scholars rarely apply this distinction within IOR research, past studies may have masked important relationships involving competence- and integrity-based trust. In response, we build and test theory that explains how competence- and integrity-based trust have asymmetric effects on different kinds of transaction costs. In particular, we build on theory that describes how parties process positive and negative information about others’ behavior to predict that integrity-based trust in IORs is more potent for reducing transaction costs than is competence-based trust. We also theorize that building strong IORs requires more up-front investment with competence-based but not with integrity-based trust. By applying meta-analytic structural equation modeling to data on 37,366 IORs drawn from 150 samples, we find that integrity-based trust is about 10 times more effective at reducing these costs. A key implication is that managers seeking to improve the efficiency of their IORs may do well by performing competently, but they can do even better by building perceptions of integrity.

Public Acceptance of Electricity Generation Sources: The Role of Trust in Regulatory Institutions

The aim of this study was to characterize the influence that different dimensions of public trust in regulatory institutions have on social acceptability judgments of electricity generation sources in Chile. Chilean university students' acceptability judgments of ten energy sources were characterized using a web-based survey, covering risk and benefit perceptions, declared levels of acceptability, and trust in regulatory institutions. Our results confirm the influence of public trust in regulatory institutions on general perceptions and acceptance of electricity generation sources, and corroborate the presence of two dimensions of trust in regulatory institutions: integrity-based trust and competence-based trust. Our results revealed a significant influence of both aspects on risk and benefit perceptions and acceptance of fossil fuels, biomass and nuclear power, while for NRES no significant relationships were found. For hydropower, integrity-based trust was the only form of trust that influenced perceptions of risks and benefits, and its influence over public acceptance was significantly larger than competence-based trust. Further analyses of results for each energy source and implications for regulators are discussed.

Prosocial lies: When deception breeds trust

Philosophers, psychologists, and economists have long asserted that deception harms trust. We challenge this claim. Across four studies, we demonstrate that deception can increase trust. Specifically, prosocial lies increase the willingness to pass money in the trust game, a behavioral measure of benevolence-based trust. In Studies 1a and 1b, we find that altruistic lies increase trust when deception is directly experienced and when it is merely observed. In Study 2, we demonstrate that mutually beneficial lies also increase trust. In Study 3, we disentangle the effects of intentions and deception; intentions are far more important than deception for building benevolence-based trust. In Study 4, we examine how prosocial lies influence integrity-based trust. We introduce a new economic game, the Rely-or-Verify game, to measure integrity-based trust. Prosocial lies increase benevolence-based trust, but harm integrity-based trust. Our findings expand our understanding of deception and deepen our insight into the mechanics of trust.

How to repair customer trust of high-risk products after negative publicity

Purpose – This paper aims to explore the efficiency of various customer trust repair efforts for high-risk products that are closely related with the safety and health of customers after negative publicity. Many corporations are suffering from the crisis of customer trust after negative publicity in China in recent years. Design/methodology/approach – Taking the Chinese dairy industry as the research context, this research adopted quantitative survey methodology using self-administered questionnaires to collect data of 204 dairy consumers in mainland China. Hypotheses tests were conducted using structural equation modeling. Findings – The results reveal that, for the high-risk products, affective repair has positive effect on benevolence-based trust and integrity-based trust, and informational repair has strong positive relationship with competence-based trust and integrity-based trust. Surprisingly, there are no significant relationship between functional repair and three factors of trust. In addition, all three trust factors positively affect repurchase intention. Originality/value – This paper is among the first to examine and confirm the efficiency of various customer trust repair efforts for high-risk products after negative publicity. The findings of this paper provide the high-risk product companies with guidance about how to repair customer trust after negative publicity.

Prosocial Lies: When Deception Breeds Trust

Philosophers, psychologists, and economists have long asserted that deception harms trust. We challenge this claim. We break new ground by demonstrating that some types of deception increase trust. Across five studies, we demonstrate that prosocial lying increases both behavioral and attitudinal measures of trust. We find that perceived benevolence is more important than perceived integrity in predicting trust behavior. We also find that deception, regardless of outcomes or intentions, harms integrity-based trust, a previously unexplored dimension of trust. This work expands our understanding of deception and deepens our insight into the mechanics of trust.

Factor analysis of the trust structure between owners and contractors of construction projects based on structural equation modeling (SEM): A case study in China

The trust crisis among stakeholders is very serious in construction projects, and this has affected the smooth implementation and benefit of projects. The existing literature has identified many types of trust. An important framework to understand the variety of trust is provided by Hartman, who distinguishes three types of trust: Competence-based trust, integrity-based trust and intuitive-based trust. In this paper, while considering China’s national conditions and cultural differences, by adopting questionnaire survey, vis-a-vis interview, structural equation modeling and a case study in China, we readjusted integrity-based trust into Guanxi-based trust. We also conducted exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses by using SPSS 17.0 and AMOS 17.0. The result suggest that both scale and model had good reliability and validity, consolidating the theoretical foundation and providing a new perspective for further research on the interaction mechanism between trust and control among stakeholders of construction projects. Key words: Construction project, trust, dimension, structural equation model (SEM), China.

Competence‐Based and Integrity‐Based Trust as Predictors of Acceptance of Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage (CCS)

Public trust in organizations that are involved in the management and use of new technologies affects lay judgments about the risks and benefits associated with these technologies. In turn, judgments about risks and benefits influence lay attitudes toward these technologies. The validity of this (indirect) effect of trust on lay attitudes toward new technologies, which is referred to as the causal chain account of trust, has up till now only been examined in correlational research. The two studies reported in this article used an experimental approach to more specifically test the causal chain account of trust in the context of carbon dioxide capture and storage technology (CCS). Complementing existing literature, the current studies explicitly distinguished between two different types of trust in organizations: competence-based trust (Study 1) and integrity-based trust (Study 2). In line with predictions, results showed that the organizational position regarding CCS implementation (pro versus con) more strongly affected people's risk and benefit perceptions and their subsequent acceptance of CCS when competence-based trust was high rather than low. In contrast, the organizational position had a greater impact on people's level of CCS acceptance when integrity-based trust was low rather than high.