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Organization Studies

Call for Papers

Special Issue on

‘Trust In Crisis: Organizational and Institutional Trust, Failures and Repair’

Guest Editors:

Reinhard Bachmann, The Management School, University of Surrey, UK

Nicole Gillespie, UQ Business School, University of Queensland, Australia

Rod Kramer, Graduate School of Business, Stanford University, USA

Deadline: 3 December 2012

Recent global events have shaken society’s trust in institutions and organizations. Taking the financial crisis as one prominent example, many analysts and scholars have identified that it is trust, more than anything, which has been damaged through the economic crisis. In particular, the public’s confidence in banks and investment firms, credit-rating agencies, business schools, and government regulators, has been undermined. Many leading businesses across a variety of industries have survived only through massive state intervention (e.g. UBS, Citigroup, General Motors). The flow-on effects of the credit-crunch, such as widespread bankruptcies, layoffs and tightening budgets, have resulted in the loss of trust from multiple stakeholders: many investors feel burnt, many employees feel their ‘psychological contracts’ have been violated, and the public becomes cynical as governments spend billions of tax payers’ money bailing out and shoring up failing banks and corporates. A trust failure of such historical dimension raises a number of serious questions at the individual, organizational, institutional and societal level, and provides potential for learning valuable and insightful lessons.

The breakdown of trust in institutions and their leaders is a pervasive global challenge that is not limited to the effects of the financial crisis. Rather, it has occurred in the context of a plethora of prominent organizational failures and trust betrayals (e.g. Enron, Parmalat, AIG, Societe Generale, German retailer Lidl, United Nations Oil-for-food program). The recent UK parliamentary expenses scandal revealed pervasive misuse of tax payers’ money by MPs for their own personal gain, and shook the nation’s confidence in their Parliament and government leaders. Scholars, government leaders, policy makers and social commentators have identified the need to restore public trust in institutions, organizations and their leaders for the effective functioning of society. For example, in response to the financial crisis, the leaders of the group of the twenty most developed nations (G20) declared that long-term trust in institutions needs to be re-established.

Despite recognition that trust operates at multiple levels (see Rousseau, Sitkin, Burt and Camerer, AMR 1998), and that an organization’s reputation for trustworthiness is a key ‘source of competitive advantage’ (Barney and Hansen, SMJ 1994: 175), research has been slow to conceptualise trust at the institutional and organizational levels as distinct from interpersonal trust. Relatively few attempts have been made to capture the essence of impersonal trust [for foundational work see Shapiro (1987) and Zucker (1986)] and how macro and micro level forces influence trust dynamics at the institutional level. Furthermore, there is only little research or theory to guide a comprehensive understanding of the processes of trust destruction and repair (Dirks, Lewicki & Zaheer, AMR 2009). The emerging research has focused largely on trust repair at the interpersonal or group level, drawing on a psychological perspective which highlights micro-level phenomena. Yet, recent research suggests that the processes of trust repair are fundamentally different at the organizational and institutional levels, with several dilemmas and problems arising for institutions that do not pertain to interpersonal contexts (see Gillespie & Dietz, AMR 2009).

The aim of this Special Issue is to focus attention squarely on trust at the macro level, and help to clarify theoretically and/or empirically the antecedents, processes and consequences of organizational and institutional trust, and its destruction and repair. We seek to draw on transdisciplinary perspectives to offer a critical space in which to conceptually unpack the notion of organization-level and institutional-based trust, and importantly the dynamic interplay between interpersonal, group, organizational, institutional and societal trust. We encourage potential contributors to consider the most challenging questions regarding macro-level trust and distrust, recognising the systemic interrelationships between factors such as individual level employee behaviour, management practice and discourse, organizational strategy, cultural and structural influences, and the organization’s institutional (regulatory and historical) context.

We invite submissions that present theoretical and/or empirical advancements in our understanding on macro-level trust, and its breakdown and repair. While our focus is primarily at the organizational or institutional level of analysis, we will consider contributions that examine trust across multiple levels of analysis. We encourage submissions that adopt novel, as well as traditional, methodologies that are appropriate for the study of macro-level trust processes and dynamics, including case-studies, ethnographic and other qualitative methods, mixed, grounded and critical approaches, con-joint analysis and vignettes, survey studies and experiments.

Some of the challenging questions to address include, but are not limited to, the following:

• How can organizational and institutional trust be conceptualised and understood? Do the antecedents and processes of trust vary across different organizational, institutional and cultural contexts?
• To what extent do the antecedents and processes of trust vary across different stakeholder groups (e.g. employees, customers, investors, suppliers etc.)? How can organizations deal with incompatible expectations from various stakeholder groups? Are different strategies required to repair the trust of different stakeholder groups?
• How can organizations repair a reputation for trustworthiness once damaged? What strategies and approaches are most effective for restoring trust? Under what circumstances and in what contexts do these approaches result in enduring outcomes?
• What insights into the antecedents and facilitators of trust failures can be gained from an analysis of case studies and the global financial crisis? What structurally-embedded pressures (e.g. short-term gains) and lack of countervailing constraints (e.g. regulatory controls, accountability and transparency) contribute to such failures?
• What insights can be learnt from the analysis of the various responses by organizations to the global financial crisis or other trust failures? Are some strategies more effective than others for retaining and/or repairing trust? To what extent and in what ways can trust in organizations and institutions be maintained in the face of large-scale change and layoffs?
• Trust is context-specific. At the level of organizations, to what extent are trust failures and repair influenced by the broader legal, political, regulatory and cultural environment? How might institutional trust repair differ across sectors (e.g. government, private sector, not-for-profit) and industries (e.g. financial, legal, health, education)?
• Is it possible or appropriate to repair trust in organizations and institutions that have repeatedly violated their stakeholders’ trust? When is ‘distrust’ an asset? Under what circumstances is distrust a problem?
• In response to the crisis, there has been a shift to greater regulation and control over financial institutions and markets (e.g. government bailouts, guarantees of bank deposits, regulations). Under what conditions can new regulations create, even restore, or substitute for damaged trust? How do these controls affect individual, organizational, institutional and societal trust?

Submissions

To be considered for publication, papers must be electronically received by 3 December 2012. Please submit papers as email attachments (Microsoft Word files only) to the Editorial Office This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , indicating in the e-mail the title of the Special Issue. Please prepare manuscripts according to the OS guidelines shown at www.egosnet.org. All papers will be blind reviewed following OS’s normal review process and criteria. Any papers accepted for publication but not included in the Special Issue will be published later, in a regular issue.

For further information please contact any of the Guest Editors:

Reinhard Bachmman ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it )
Nicole Gillespie ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it )
Rod Kramer ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it )

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Background and Rationale for this Special Issue.

Clear, concise construct definitions are fundamental for effective theory building and the accumulation of knowledge through research. Without tight conceptual definitions, it is difficult to clearly explicate the nomological network around that construct or prevent unnecessary construct contamination, proliferation and redundancy. It also becomes difficult to develop or validate sound measures that operationalize those constructs with the appropriate content domain, level of analysis, degree of specificity, and dimensionality without clearly specified construct definitions. The problem of poorly defined constructs is not unique to Human Resource Management (HRM), but it has also not received the attention in HRM that it has in other literatures.

In the strategic HRM literature there are numerous constructs that have only been loosely defined or so poorly defined that measures often vary greatly from one study to the next. For example, researchers have focused on "selective staffing" "the use of valid selection devices" "the percentage of the workforce given a pre-employment test" and "the percentage of skilled workers" when examining specific selection practices and in all of these cases, similar discussions are provided of the underlying construct purportedly being studied. "Bundles" of practices is another example, with various terms to discuss these bundles (e.g., "high performance work systems" "high commitment work systems," "high involvement work systems") with clear distinctions drawn between those terms by some authors and the various terms used interchangeably by others. Construct clarity concerns are not limited to the macro HR literature. Performance is a variable relevant at all levels that, while receiving more attention than most, is still often poorly defined and operationalized. At the micro level, measures of effort, engagement, recruitment sources, and socialization are examples of constructs that are defined and measured with great variability. These are just illustrative examples as there are numerous other concepts in need of more precise construct definition and then valid measurement.

The aim of this Special Issue is to provide a forum on construct clarity in HRM research. For this issue, authors are invited to submit articles that (a) offer insights into this key aspect of theory building, (b) highlight issues in the literature that stem from ill defined constructs, and/or (c) propose new, integrative, or refined definitions for key HRM constructs. The following are some illustrative ways manuscripts could contribute to this forum. This is not meant to be an exhaustive list and many other issues could be explored within the theme of this special issue.

• Critique the existing definition(s) of a construct and propose an alternative definition that addresses those concerns.
• Make the case that a current construct should be separated into distinct constructs or, alternatively, that constructs that have been treated separately should really be considered as a single, perhaps multidimensional construct.
• Clarify the nomological network around a key HRM construct.
• Propose a new construct. Manuscripts doing so should provide a clear theoretical need for the construct, a clear conceptual definition, and make a strong case for the value added to the literature above and beyond existing constructs.
• Summarize the available construct validity evidence available in the literature for a measure of a HRM construct with recommendations for the refinement and or use of that measure.
• Evaluate or comment on the state of construct development within HRM. Suggest a new approach or perspective relating to construct development and/or construct validation within HRM.

Manuscript Submission and Review Process

• This call is open and competitive. Papers submitted for this special issue will go through a standard double-blind review process to ensure relevance and quality (contributors should expect to be a reviewer of others' papers to generate a more integrated volume).
• Authors should prepare manuscripts in accordance with HRMR style and submission guidelines, published at the back of every issue or on the HRMR website.
• For the actual submission of manuscripts, do not use the Elsevier website. Instead, email completed manuscripts in a Word-compatible format directly to guest editor, John Delery ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ).
  1. Delete all author identification from the primary document (e.g., cover page, author note). Prior work by the authors need not be removed from the manuscript (i.e., self-citations and references should not be omitted or redacted).
  2. Attach a separate complete title page with the paper title and complete affiliation and contact information for all authors (names, titles, affiliations, mailing addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, and fax numbers).
  3. Please clearly identify your submission in the email subject line "HRMR-Special Issue".

The deadline for submitting manuscripts is Monday, January 25, 2010.

The editors of this special issue are happy to answer any questions or discuss initial ideas for papers, and can be contacted directly at the email addresses above.