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van Rietschoten, E., & van Bommel, K. (2024). Toward a contemporary understanding of organizational trust in socio-economic systems: Connecting theoretical perspectives of the management and business ethics literature. Business Ethics, the Environment & Responsibility, 00, 1–29.
Van Rietschoten, E., van Bommel, K. A Critique of Utilitarian Trust: The Case of the Dutch Insurance Sector. J Bus Ethics 183, 1011–1028 (2023).
Van Rietschoten, E. J. (2022). Intrinsic trust; Towards pursuing a proper mixture of self- and common interests within the good organizational practice Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam]. Amsterdam.
Toward a contemporary understanding of organizational trust in socio‐economic systems: Connecting theoretical perspe-ctives of the management and business ethics literature.
Abstract
This paper provides a comprehensive overview of the evolution of 30years of academic research on organizational trust in socio-economic practice in the management and business ethics literature. A systematic review of 160 papers published in leading management and business ethics academic journals reveals two interpretations—one based on a transactional, cause-and-effect idea of the benefit of trust within relationships (or utilitarian trust), and one based on personal, sincere, and virtuous attributes of character allowing the participant to engage in trusting (or virtuous trust). Our review contributes an analysis of the state of prior research and the literature's intertextual coherence which allows problematization of the current theory and identification of opportunities for further contributions. Future work could be based on the interconnections among these two research traditions, ways to expand the current understanding of utilitarian trust, and proposals for a basic moral framework to support virtuous trust from the perspective of an understanding of trust in the socio-economic practice in which contemporary trust problems arise. Our reinforcement of the theoretical underpinnings of trust also offers practical guidance as it sheds light on trust's nuanced dimensions in complex organizational and socio-economic environments.
How to cite
van Rietschoten, E., & van Bommel, K. (2024). Toward a contemporary understanding of organizational trust in socio-economic systems: Connecting theoretical perspectives of the management and business ethics literature. Business Ethics, the Environment & Responsibility, 00, 1–29.
Abstract
The organizational trust literature relies strongly on the notion of trust and trustworthiness as a calculative cause-and-effect relationship aimed at assessing the advantages and disadvantages between two actors. This utilitarian notion of trust has been critiqued by studies that highlight construct inconsistencies related to utilitarian trust, which, it is argued, is deficient, incomplete and misleading. Our empirical study of the Dutch insurance sector identifies and categorizes three process inconsistencies that help to explain why the calculation of trust in a utilitarian sense is seemingly impossible in practice and is a barrier to the unambiguous assessment of individual needs and individual utility. These process inconsistencies successively concern insufficient information, complex behavioural dynamics, and a convoluted pattern of stakeholder influence to assess utility in trust relationships, specifically within complex socio-economic systems. Our findings contribute to the trust literature by proposing a classification of the previous critiques on utilitarian trust, and by showing that in scenarios of systematic rather than dyadic trust, process inconsistencies may be too strong to endure a ‘leap of faith’, at least with regard to suspension and assessing utilitarian trust in these more complex socio-economic systems.
How to cite
Van Rietschoten, E., van Bommel, K. A Critique of Utilitarian Trust: The Case of the Dutch Insurance Sector. J Bus Ethics 183, 1011–1028 (2023).
A Critique of Utilitarian Trust: The Case of the Dutch Insurance Sector
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