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‘Public Trust’ and Trust in Particular Firm–Stakeholder Interactions

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Abstract

Trust is a well-established facet of organizational life, and one that can have a profound effect upon the performance of business organizations. In this paper, we develop a theoretical model that accounts for different aspects of trust, differential stakeholder views of trust, and how these differences impact a stakeholder's trust in a particular business. In turn, we theorize about the connection between this particularized stakeholder trust and the trust one has in business as an institution, accounting for the role of institutional influences and societal accounts (ie, ‘narratives’) about business. We discuss implications of the model and directions for future research.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Reinhard Bachmann, Karen Cook, Ed Freeman, Diego Gambetta, Roderick Kramer, Dean Krehmeyer, Mike Lenox, Deepak Malhotra, David Newkirk, Bobby Parmar, Laura Poppo, Richard Priem, Dominic Scott and Ric Uslaner for helpful comments, and Paul Argenti for detailed, constructive feedback on an earlier draft. We gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Olsson Center for Applied Ethics and the Darden School Foundation. All errors remain our own.

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  1. Darden School of Business Administration, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA

    Jared D Harris & Andrew C Wicks

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  1. Jared D Harris
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  2. Andrew C Wicks
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Harris, J., Wicks, A. ‘Public Trust’ and Trust in Particular Firm–Stakeholder Interactions. Corp Reputation Rev 13, 142–154 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1057/crr.2010.13

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