Trusting as a ‘Leap of Faith’: Trust-building practices in client–consultant relationships
Introduction
Trust is “essential to commercial transactions that are not fully controlled by either legal constraints of contracts or the economic forces of markets” (Oakes, 1990: 674). Consulting services are a good example of such transactions because they are characterized by high ambiguity, complexity and interdependency of actors engaged in the production and consumption of the service. Building trust in client–consultant relationships is challenging because the high institutional uncertainty of the consulting market, meaning that there is no professional certification and accreditation of consultants, increases clients’ uncertainty und vulnerability when choosing consultants (Glückler & Armbrüster, 2003). Understanding how trust develops in client–consultant relationships can therefore provide important insights toward understanding trust granting in complex and ambiguous business-to-business relationships.
Although some research on trust building in client–consultant relationships exists, important gaps remain. Currently, there is limited research in the consulting literature on how clients and consultants can build trust, i.e. the actual practices they engage in. For instance, according to Glückler and Armbrüster (2003) trust in client–consultant relationships is based either on market reputation, direct client experience or is communicated through a network of trusting acquaintances. Others explore the antecedents for developing trust in client–consultant relationships, such as the consultant's credibility, reputation, experience and capacity for caring (Joni, 2005, May, 2004, Robinson and Robinson, 2006), which is in line with the generic ‘ABI’ model of perceived trustworthiness dimensions. This research suggests that trust is based on the perception of ability, benevolence and integrity (Mayer, Davis, & Schoorman, 1995).
However, little is known how clients and consultants actually create and maintain trusting relations and how they try to actively enhance perceptions of trustworthiness. It is the aim of this study to give answers to these questions. Prior conceptual work on the leap of faith in trust (see Möllering, 2001) looks beyond indicators of trustworthiness and suggests a process perspective on trusting in the face of vulnerability and uncertainty. Our study adopts this theoretical stance and makes two contributions. First, we develop a grounded model based on an empirical study of clients and consultants in Australia, which explains clients’ and consultants’ perceptions of the process of granting trust to consultants. We focus on clients’ and consultants’ reflections on the selection process of consultants and the role of social interaction in this process. Our study shows that the creation of trust is constituted by three social practices: (1) signaling ability and integrity; (2) demonstrating benevolence; and (3) establishing an emotional connection. This entails not just the clients’ detached perception but the co-creation of cognitive and affective trust bases for the relationship (Beckert, 2006). Second, by emphasizing client–consultant interaction our findings also contribute to the general debate in the trust literature that calls for a process approach to trust (Möllering, 2013, Nooteboom, 2002) and extends earlier work on the element of suspension in trust by showing the ongoing social practices that support positive expectations and the leap of faith in client–consultant relationships (see also Näslund, 2012).
The paper is organized as follows: first, we develop our theoretical framework. We review existing research on trust, how it has been reflected in consulting literature, and outline shortcomings of existing research followed by the discussion of a process perspective on trust as our theoretical framework. In the next section, we describe our research design and present the main findings of our study. Based on insights from the literature and on our empirical research, we develop a conceptual framework of three trust–building practices. We conclude the paper by summarizing our main findings and outlining directions for future research.
Section snippets
Theoretical framework: Good reasons and the leap of faith
Trust research in organizational contexts has largely converged on defining trust as “a psychological state comprising the intention to accept vulnerability based upon positive expectations of the intentions or behavior of another” (Rousseau, Sitkin, Burt, & Camerer, 1998: 395). In turn, this definition builds on Mayer et al.’s (1995) seminal article in which they highlight the “willingness … to be vulnerable” (p. 712) as a defining element of trust and develop a model of three main antecedents
Sampling and data collection
The purpose of this study is to understand clients’ and consultants’ trust creation. Based on a qualitative research design, we studied how clients and consultants perceived and interpreted trust granting practices. We choose individual consultants (sole practitioners) and consultants working in boutique, general management consultancies; they are particularly interesting for our study because without the brand and public reputation of a large consulting firm, clients face higher uncertainty
Empirical findings
Trust, we argue, is achieved by forming a social relationship between clients and consultants leading to the development of a shared social space that enables the leap of faith to take place. In this, trust is much more than a mental decision taken independently by clients. In the following, we investigate social practices contributing to the creation of trust in client–consultant relations.
Discussion
Management and professional service scholars have argued for some time that trust plays a crucial role in understanding and managing business relationships with clients and customers. Yet few have studied empirically how trust is actually created or produced in business relations, what practices are specifically accountable for the granting of trust in these relationships and the role of social interaction. Following earlier calls for process approaches in trust research (Möllering, 2006,
Conclusion
By highlighting practices that, on the one hand, reduce uncertainty and vulnerability and, on the other, make remaining levels of uncertainty and vulnerability acceptable, we provide much-needed empirical contributions to a theory of trust that entails two key elements that prior trust research has acknowledged but not come to terms with yet: the leap of faith and the socio-cognitive-emotional process of trusting. We go beyond Möllering, 2001, Möllering, 2006 original conceptualization that
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank editor Alexander Styhre and two anonymous reviewers for their very helpful comments. We would also like to thank the participants of the Novac Druce Conference on Entrepreneurship in Professional Services at Leuphana University Lüneburg in Lüneburg, July 2012, and the participants of our session at the Annual Meeting of Academy of Management in Boston, August 2012, for their constructive feedback. Last but not least, we are grateful for Steward Clegg's
References (86)
Trust as sensemaking: The microdynamics of trust in interfirm alliances
Journal of Business Research
(2005)- et al.
Diverging expectations in buyer–seller relationships: Institutional contexts and relationship norms
Industrial Marketing Management
(2009) - et al.
Client and consultant interaction: Capturing social practices of professional service production
Scandinavian Journal of Management
(2009) From inductive to iterative grounded theory: Zipping the gap between process theory and process data
Scandinavian Journal of Management
(1997)Organizations as rhetoric: Knowledge-intensive firms and the struggle with ambiguity
Journal of Management Studies
(1993)Knowledge work: Ambiguity, image and identity
Human Relations
(2001)- et al.
Examining the relationship between trust and culture in the consultant–client relationship
- et al.
Trust in signs
- et al.
Organizing is both a verb and a noun: Weick meets Whitehead
Organization Studies
(2006) Emotion, social theory, and social structure: A macrosociological approach
(2001)
A characterization of trust, and its consequences
Theoretical Sociology
Client role ambiguity and satisfaction in client–ad agency relationships
Journal of Advertising Research
Trust and markets
The role of trust and contract in the supply of business advice
Cambridge Journal of Economics
The emergence of norms in competitive decision-making groups
Administrative Science Quarterly
‘Leaps of faith’ and MMR: An empirical study
Sociology
Managing consultants: Consultancy as the management of impressions
Learning to trust and trusting to learn: A role for radical theatre
Management Learning
Basics of qualitative research: Techniques and procedures for developing grounded theory
Exploring interpersonal trust in the entrepreneurial venture
Going back to the source: Why do people trust each other?
Journal of Trust Research
Introduction: Unravelling the complexities of trust and culture
An examination of the nature of trust in buyer–seller relationships
Journal of Marketing
Suspending the unknown: The foundations, limits, and variability of intersubjective trust
Asymmetry of information and the service relationship: Selection and evaluation of the service provider
International Journal of Service Industry Management
The consequences of modernity
Risk, trust, reflexivity
Bridging uncertainty in management consulting: The mechanisms of trust and networked reputation
Organization Studies
Authenticity
Understanding organization as process: Theory for a tangled world
Social cognition: Learning about what matters in the social world
European Journal of Social Psychology
The coevolution of trust, control, and learning in joint ventures
Organization Science
Communication and trust in global virtual teams
Organization Science
Trust as an affective attitude
Ethics
Trust and the third opinion
Consulting to Management
Exploring relationship management in professional services: A study of management consultancy
Journal of Marketing Management
Trust as a process: A three-dimensional approach
Sociology
Fear and trembling
Trust, contract and relationship development
Organization Studies
Trust and distrust in organizations: Emerging perspectives, enduring questions
Annual Review of Psychology
Strategic capabilities which lead to management consulting success
Management Decision
Doing interviews
InterViews: Learning the craft of qualitative research interviewing
Cited by (67)
HRM systems and knowledge transfer in alliance projects: Exploring social identity dynamics
2024, Human Resource Management ReviewBuilding Trusting Multicultural Organizations: Rethinking the Influence of Culture on Interpersonal Trust Development in the Workplace
2022, Journal of International ManagementCitation Excerpt :Firstly, organizational structure led to predictability, which in turn enabled them to make themselves vulnerable prior to gathering trust-related knowledge of their counterpart. Secondly, informal communication style, which arouses emotion-laden interactions with counterparts as (Nikolova et al., 2015) have found, led to an increased openness (examples of Frederick and Henry), and consequently fostered information sharing and enhanced their assessments of their counterpart's trustworthiness. Finally, organizational politics, as a contextual factor proposed by Mayer et al. (2011) influencing perceptions of trust, created uncertainty and ambiguity among the organizational members, thus hindering the development of trust in the workplace (examples of Gale and Vicki).
The Role of Trust in Disaster Risk Reduction: A Critical Review
2024, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public HealthTrust and stakeholder perspectives on the implementation of AI tools in clinical radiology
2024, European RadiologyUnpacking the Duality of Control and Trust in Inter-Organizational Relationships through Action-Reaction Cycles
2023, Journal of Management Studies