The impact of types of trust in the public sector – a case study approach

• Published date: 08 April 2019
• Date: 08 April 2019
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJPSM-08-2017-0226
• Pages: 247-263
• Author: Linda Höglund,Maria Mårtensson,Aswo Safari
• Subject Matter: Public policy & environmental management,Politics,Public adminstration & management

The impact of types of trust

in the public sector –a case

study approach

Linda Höglund

School of Business, Society and Engineering (EST),

Mälardalen University, Västerås, Sweden

Maria Mårtensson

School of Business and Economics,

Linnaeus University and Stockholm Business School,

Stockholm University, Sweden, and

Aswo Safari

School of Business, Society and Engineering (EST),

Mälardalen University, Västerås, Sweden

Abstract

Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to study how different types of trust develop and change over time in

the collaboration between an organization and its board.

Design/methodology/approach –This paper is a response to a recent call to apply the concept oftrust in

understanding the collaboration between a public organization, its board, and other stakeholders. Here, the

authors study a single case, and based on a longitudinal in-depth case study method covering the period of

2003–2015, the authors have conducted 27 interviews, including the CEO and all the board members.

Findings –The authors introduce a nd advance the concept of t rust in the public sector l iterature on

board work. This paper sh ows that trust is complex an d multidimensional at di fferent units of analysi s.

The types of trust discus sed in this paper are cognitive, affective , contractual, competence, and goodwill .

Different types of trust are developed to make the collaboration between a governed organization and its

board to work.

Research limitations/implications –Because this paper uses the case study method and only studies one

single case, the findings of this paper might be questioned on the issue of generalization.

Originality/value –The authors conceptualize and adopt trust as a multidimensional, dynamic concept, and

with different units of analyses, capture the nature of the collaboration between a public organization and its

board, and its complexity.

Keywords Collaboration, Multidimensionality, Trust, Public organization, Board work

Paper type Research paper

Introduction

Trust between organizations and their boards of directors is essential for an organization to

work and achieve organizational goals outlined by the boards (Sako, 2006). Nevertheless,

previous research used theoretical lenses such as agency theory, stakeholder theory,

resource dependency theory, stewardship theory, and a democratic perspective (Hinna et al.,

2010). There are contradicting results among these theories, mainly because these theories

take a narrow stance, focusing on control mechanisms rather than behavioral aspects of

interaction between boards and organizations (Minichilli et al., 2009). Huse and Zattoni

(2008) call for adopting the behavioral concept of trust to understand and explain interaction

between small organizations and their boards in a public sector context. Further, they argue

that most research focuses on that large US firms and the need to include small firms in

other contexts; that most research is based on easy access to data, cross-sectional design,

and archival data, and focuses on finding the relationships between different constructs, so

more qualitative research is necessary to understand the behavior dimension of a board and

International Journal of Public

Sector Management

Vol. 32 No. 3, 2019

pp. 247-263

© Emerald PublishingLimited

0951-3558

DOI 10.1108/IJPSM-08-2017-0226

Received 29 August 2017

Revised 28 January 2018

4 June 2018

24 July 2018

Accepted 3 August 2018

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

www.emeraldinsight.com/0951-3558.htm

247

Types of

trust in the

public sector

its governed organization; and it is important to understand actual board behavior and,

therefore, behavior concepts, such as that trust is necessary to understand the relationships

between various stakeholders, inside and outside the board and the governed organization.

Because trust may explain board and organizational efficiency (Mayer et al., 2014), it must

be given greater attention to understand the interaction between boards and their governed

organizations. However, despite agreement on the importance of trust, there is still a lack of

studies on trust in this context (Zhang et al., 2013). Board members are influenced and

obligated by their own organizations (Cornforth, 2012), which their behavior on the board

and development of trust with the governed organization. Further, trust between various

actors, such as board, CEO, and organization, reduces relational risks (Zhang et al., 2013), so

it is important to study how trust develops between organization and its board for efficient

organizational performance (Huse and Zattoni, 2008).

Trust as a theoretical concept has been adopted in several other fields and is often

connected to relationship-building, as a measure of how efficient collaborations are

(Gould-Williams, 2003; Lewis and Weigert, 2012). However, there is no universal definition

of trust, and sometimes it is not easy to grasp the concept within different literatures

(Fledderus, 2015). In social psychology literature, trust has been conceptualized as three

dimensional by Lewis and Weigert (1985), with cognitive, affective, and behavioral

dimensions. The cognitive aspect is related to rational decision-making based on

information available, affective trust is related to emotional bonding toward the counterpart,

and behavioral trust is the action taken by the individual or group of individuals affected by

cognitive and affective trust (Safari, 2014). Nevertheless, from the time trust emerged as a

multidimensional theoretical concept, other dimensions of trust were introduced in different

academic fields, such as contractual trust, competence trust, goodwill trust (Sako, 1992), and

connected trust (Safari and Thilenius, 2013). Nevertheless, Lewis and Weigert (2012) stress

the importance of adopting a multidimensional concept for understanding the impact of

overall trust in different contexts. In public sector literature, some scholars such as Huse and

Zattoni (2008) call for adopting trust in the public sector, specifically in collaboration

between organizations and their boards. Our study is a response to this call, but instead of

using trust as a narrow concept we adopt the multidimensionality of trust to study the

collaboration process. Because different types of trust are important in different phases of a

relationship (Safari and Thilenius, 2013), it is important to conceptualize trust as

multidimensional to fully understand its impact (Lewis and Weigert, 2012). In public sector

literature, Huse and Zattoni (2008) is one of few studies discussing trust and adopting a two-

dimensional concept. We build on this study and include other types of trust, aiming to

study how different types of trust develop and change over time in the collaboration

between an organization and its board.

This paper explores and manifests by case study research that trust is important in the

collaboration between a public organization and its board. We contribute to the public sector

literature on board behavior (see, e.g. Conforth, 2003, 2004, 2012; Hinna et al., 2010; Gnan

et al., 2013) in the following ways: trust is multidimensional, and different dimensions of

trust appear in the collaboration process depending on the situation. Trust is related to the

goals and visions outlined for the organization. Trust changes from one dimension to

another, depending on what the board expects from the organization, but also depending on

what the organization expects from the board. It means that trust is not unidirectional and

goes both ways between the organization and the board. This paper contributes to trust in

the public sector literature by showing that initially, contractual trust is established for

collaboration based on the financier’s expectations of the board, while eventually other

types of trust (competence, goodwill, and cognitive and affective) develop between the

board, the organization, and financiers, and also with different individual board members

and in the organization. Due to the complex nature of the collaboration, different types of

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