Trust: Forms, Foundations, Functions, Failures and Figures

Citation

Möllering, G. (2003), "Trust: Forms, Foundations, Functions, Failures and Figures", Personnel Review, Vol. 32 No. 5, pp. 665-667. https://doi.org/10.1108/00483480310488397

Bart Nooteboom likes to ask questions – and dares giving his own answers. We join him in this monograph in the search for answers to ten sets of questions about trust addressing, in particular, the value of trust; the economic function of trust; failures of trust; trust and probability; calculative and non‐calculative trust; objects and aspects of trust; the sources of trustworthiness; the mental basis of trust; the process of trust; and the testing and modelling of trust. Instead of encountering the questions in this sequence, we travel through the five areas of interest given in the book title, i.e. the forms, foundations, functions, failures and figures of trust meeting the questions along the way. For readers primarily interested in trust the journey is thoroughly enjoyable and instructive for the first half but less exciting in the second. Overall, the author achieves his principal aim of contributing to more conceptual coherence in trust research without surrendering the richness of the concept.

Before embarking on the journey, the author presents his ten sets of questions and the theoretical equipment for the adventure in some detail. He reveals his objection against the view that trust is non‐rational, arguing that rationality can be based on mechanisms other than self‐interested calculation. He also points out that a process view of trust is required, that an interpretative approach to trust is called for, that a complex causality for trust must be assumed and that the situatedness and institutional embeddedness of trust needs to be recognised. Despite the possible rationality of trust, Nooteboom emphasises that all trust by definition involves “radical” uncertainty.

Following the introductory chapter, the forms of trust are visited first. Arguing that trust should be neither restricted to nor separated from probabilistic and calculative considerations of the trustor, the author distinguishes forms of trust according to the possible objects of trust giving seven categories (with further subcategories) including behavioural, material, competence, intentional, conditional, exemplar and informational trust drawing on an action theory that he traces back to Aristotle. Not only people but also organisations and institutions can be objects (and subjects) of trust. The relationship between personal and impersonal trust is very complex, though. Nooteboom illustrates it quite lucidly, albeit with a highly objectified notion of “organisation”.

The next chapter takes us to the foundations of trust which the author categorises first of all by distinguishing between egotistic and altruistic sources on one dimension and macro and micro sources on a second dimension (giving a two‐by‐two table). He discusses the sources in detail, making sure that the complex and extensive issues behind the simple distinctions are understood. Moreover, Nooteboom identifies (tentatively) the effects of psychological sources of trust and in greater detail the processual nature of trust and its sources. All in all, he suggests that it is possible to identify positively the foundations for trust but that the way they bear out in practice is ultimately indeterminate.

The chapters on forms and foundations of trust are truly perceptive and insightful for trust research, but the journey subsequently takes an unexpected and unwelcome turn away from trust as such into Nooteboom's home ground of inter‐organisational governance. Instead of systematically discussing different functions of trust in this chapter, the author treats trust as one possible instrument of inter‐organisational governance. Clearly this is one important function of trust which is highly important for relationships between organisations and needs to be understood in relation to contractual mechanisms and so on, but a book on trust should not drift that far from its central theme into a topic on which the author has published extensively and authoritatively elsewhere. The same applies to the short chapter on the failures of trust which hardly reaches beyond the insight that trust is only functional within limits and that institution‐based trust requires trust in institutions. If you are interested in systems of innovation, though, then this may be the most interesting chapter of the book for you.

The sixth chapter on the figures of trust reports empirical findings from studies on inter‐organisational governance that Nooteboom has been involved in. They illustrate that meaningful findings can be achieved even with structured quantitative measures. More original are the reported attempts at simulating trust using agent‐based computational economics by one of Nooteboom's doctoral students. The final chapter gives a summary of the answers that the author would give to his ten sets of questions. His answers certainly go far beyond mainstream conceptions of trust – sometimes not far enough – and I was amazed how frequently I could strongly agree with them. Unfortunately, the final chapter does not achieve more than a summary. Some kind of integrative framework or set of propositions would have been desirable.

In terms of style, the book is clear and engaging, targeted at an academic audience but suitable also for practitioners and general interest given some basic knowledge of organisation science and proclivity for concepts. Nooteboom somewhat overdoes the Williamson bashing – the favourite but by now unoriginal pastime of many organisational trust researchers. His eclecticism is refreshing, but can become superficial and random at times. It is not helped by the frequent cross‐references between chapters and the shuffling of the ten questions that may confuse rather than support the flow of the argument.

To fully appreciate the book, I would encourage the reader to the following exercise: before reading the book, go to page 16 (Table 1.1) and take a few hours to answer the ten sets of questions that Nooteboom addresses in the book yourself. Then read the book and compare your notes with it. Whether you are an experienced trust researcher or a novice to the topic, you are bound to be impressed, surprised, occasionally disappointed and persuaded. You will often agree and partly disagree with Nooteboom's ideas and surely recognise new questions to be asked. What more can we expect from a scholarly text?