Communication after an integrity-based trust violation: How organizational account giving affects trust

How can an organization repair trust through communication after an ethical failure? This study examines how trust is repaired after an integrity-based trust violation using three different accounts: apology, excuse, and refusal. In our approach, we rely on two strands of attribution theory, which suggests that different attributions for responsibility and credibility affect trust. An experiment with n = 368 was conducted to explore trust repair effectiveness of apology versus refusal and apology versus excuse after an integrity-based trust violation. Results revealed apology as a double-edged sword; it repairs trust more successfully than refusal and excuse because it is evaluated as more credible. However, it is less successful than refusal and excuse because it is evaluated as more responsible.     

The Moderating Role of Power Distance on the Reaction of Consumers to the CEO as a Spokesperson During a Product Harm Crisis: Insights From China and South Korea

During a crisis the corporate message is not the only issue facing the company. The role of the spokesperson is an under-researched area which is examined in this paper. In studies conducted in South Korea and China we examine the reaction of consumers to the CEO as a spokesperson during a product harm crisis. We find in both countries that consumer responses to the CEO was contingent on the consumers' level of power distance. When consumers had high levels of power distance they had higher future purchase intentions when compared with consumers who had low levels of power distance when the CEO was the spokesperson during the crisis. In addition, in a study conducted in South Korea we find that higher levels of power distance generate increased levels of brand trust when the CEO is the spokesperson, which in turn increases future purchase intentions. Our studies have important theoretical and managerial implications which are discussed in the paper.     

不同维度信任相互作用及对在线购物意愿影响研究

信任显著影响消费者对特定网站的购买意愿,许多学者分析信任对于购买意愿的影响,但大多都将信任作为单一维度的变量进行分析。将信任分解为能力信任、正直信任和友善信任3个基本维度,分析不同维度信任之间的相互作用及其对在线购物意愿的影响。通过在线收集191份消费者数据,采用三阶段最小二乘分析方法进行实证。研究结果表明,能力信任直接影响在线购物意愿,友善信任和正直信任并不直接影响消费者的在线购买意愿,正直信任通过与能力信任的相互作用间接影响在线购物意愿,友善信任通过作用于正直信任最终影响在线购物意愿。最后给出网站应如何分配资源和向消费者传达网站值得信赖的属性的建议。     

Why trustworthiness in an IT vendor is important even after the vendor left: IT is accepting the message and not just the messenger that is important

Trustworthiness is the assessment that another person or others can be trusted because in the past they had shown adequate ability, integrity, and benevolence. Trust is the actual willingness to depend on the trusted party to fulfill its future obligations when there is risk that this trusted party might take undue advantage of the situation. In the current conceptualization of trust theory, trustworthiness is important because it leads to trust. Applied to the management of IT adoption and assessment, research has indeed shown that both trustworthiness and trust, often combined statistically, have a direct effect on IT adoption and assessment. There are circumstances, however, such as in this study, when the trusted party has left the scene, making its future actions and the risk of dependence on these actions irrelevant to the trusting party. The question arises whether trustworthiness still plays a role in such cases. Seemingly, at least based on the current conceptualization, this should make the trustworthiness of the trusted party an insignificant consideration. Logic is advanced why even in such a case trustworthiness may still be important, but should play an indirect role. The proposition suggested is that the trustworthiness of the messenger is important, as previously suggested, but what really counts is accepting the message this messenger conveyed. An argument is raised why in this case interpersonal justice increases trustworthiness and user acceptance of the message. The data support these propositions. Theory and managerial implications are discussed.     

Modeling Retrospective Attribution of Responsibility to Hazard‐Managing Institutions: An Example Involving a Food Contamination Incident

Perceptions of institutions that manage hazards are important because they can affect how the public responds to hazard events. Antecedents of trust judgments have received far more attention than antecedents of attributions of responsibility for hazard events. We build upon a model of retrospective attribution of responsibility to individuals to examine these relationships regarding five classes of institutions that bear responsibility for food safety: producers (e.g., farmers), processors (e.g., packaging firms), watchdogs (e.g., government agencies), sellers (e.g., supermarkets), and preparers (e.g., restaurants). A nationally representative sample of 1,200 American adults completed an Internet‐based survey in which a hypothetical scenario involving contamination of diverse foods with Salmonella served as the stimulus event. Perceived competence and good intentions of the institution moderately decreased attributions of responsibility. A stronger factor was whether an institution was deemed (potentially) aware of the contamination and free to act to prevent or mitigate it. Responsibility was rated higher the more aware and free the institution. This initial model for attributions of responsibility to impersonal institutions (as opposed to individual responsibility) merits further development.     

C2C环境下顾客初始信任的影响机制研究:网上购物经验的调节作用

本文基于网上购物经验不同的顾客,运用实证研究探讨了C2C环境下顾客初始信任的影响机制。结果表明,感知产品、感知信用评分和感知客户评论均显著影响顾客初始信任;网上购物经验显著调节感知产品和感知信用评分对顾客初始信任的影响,而对感知客户评论与初始信任的关系未起到显著调节作用。本文深化了顾客初始信任的理论研究,对网上店铺赢得顾客初始信任及顾客购买意愿具有实践意义。     

Towards a Framework of Trust Attribution Styles

The issue of trust has attracted considerable business and management inquiry over the last decade, due to its impact on working relationships within and between organizations. Given its importance, it is fundamental for management to be able to foster trust and thus necessary to accurately diagnose the current state of trust in their organization. However, diagnosing trust in real contexts is challenging due to its taboo and tacit nature. Hence, a surreptitious approach to data gathering and analysis may be required to elicit honest accounts from participants about trust. This paper contends that attribution theory can provide the basis for the development of such an analytical framework by enabling researchers to analyse field data about organizational life. The paper presents literature that highlights the appropriateness of attribution style analysis for explaining trust. It presents a taxonomy of trust‐related terms, and proposes a framework of distinct attribution patterns for each term to systematize the diagnosis of trust in situ. The paper concludes with a discussion about the value of the framework for trust research and directions for future work.     

电视购物消费者知觉风险与购买决策行为分析

电视购物作为一种无店铺营销的商业零售模式,在国内的发展中一直深受信任危机的困扰。本研究引入心理学知觉风险的概念,通过调查目前消费者对电视购物的风险知觉及其购买行为,来了解目前国内电视购物的消费者对电视购物有怎样的风险知觉,消费者对电视购物的风险知觉对其购买决策有怎样的影响,以及消费者特征、消费者对电视购物的风险知觉和其购买决策行为之间的关系和影响作用。     

Trust in Risky Messages: The Role of Prior Attitudes

Risk perception researchers have observed a "negativity bias" for hazard-related information. Messages indicating the presence of risk seem to be trusted more than messages indicating the absence of risk, and risk perceptions seem more affected by negative than positive information. Two experiments were conducted to examine alternative explanations of this finding within the area of food additives. Study 1 (N = 235) extended earlier work by (a) unconfounding message valence (positive or negative) from message extremity (definite or null finding) and (b) exploring the role of prior attitudes. Results suggested that negative/risky messages were indeed trusted more even when extremity was taken into account. However, prior attitudes significantly moderated the effect of message valence on trust. Positive messages were distrusted only by those with negative prior attitudes. Study 2 (N = 252), further explored the role of prior attitudes and extended the work by examining reactions to risky messages about a positively viewed additive--a vitamin. The results again found a moderating effect of prior attitudes on message valence. Participants had greater confidence in messages that were more congruent with their prior attitudes, irrespective of valence. Furthermore, positive messages had a greater impact on risk perception than negative messages. These findings suggest that greater trust in negative messages about hazards may be a product of a "confirmatory" rather than a "negativity" bias.     

网店信息呈现的框架效应对消费者购买决策的影响研究

目前有关在线消费者购买意愿的研究，绝大多数是基于实验统计的方法，分析影响消费者购买决策的因素，网店信息呈现的框架形式往往仅作为其中的关键因素被一些研究提及并加以验证。但是，"形态各异"的信息到底如何影响消费者心理进而影响到他们的决策？商家如何从消费者心理的微观层面来设计信息呈现策略，从而增强其购买意愿？目前关于此的研究尚不多见。本研究从前景理论的决策参考点视角，以价格因素为例，一方面，通过情境实验，验证了价格信息的不同呈现框架对于消费者购买意愿的影响作用；另一方面，在利用情境实验界定了消费者心理价格参考点的基础上，通过决策模型的构建和计算，从微观层面分析了不同价格信息呈现框架下，消费者购买选择大相径庭的原因。研究结果表明：（1）在风险框架下，相对于用不确定的语言来描述商品价格信息，确定性语言描述会使消费者的心理价格参考点和购买意愿更高。（2）在属性框架下，相对于用负面的语言来描述商品信息，正面的语言描述更能提高消费者的心理价格参考点和购买意愿。（3）在目标框架下，相对于强调购买行为可能给消费者带来的收益，强调不购买该商品可能给消费者带来的损失更有助于消费者的心理价格参考点和购买意愿的提高。基于上述研究结果，作者围绕网店如何有效的呈现信息提出了管理建议，并讨论了本研究的理论意义与应用价值。     

服务失误归因与顾客感知的公平性关系研究

通过对广州市内几家餐馆的顾客进行问卷调查,探讨顾客归因、服务公平性及顾客信任感之间的关系。数据分析结果表明,服务失误归因包括内控性、外控性和普遍性3个组成成分,这3个组成成分对顾客感知的服务公平性有不同程度的影响。内控性对顾客感知的服务公平性影响最大,其次为普遍性和外控性。顾客感知的服务公平性包括程序、交往、结果和信息公平性4个组成成分,该4个组成成分均显著影响顾客的信任感。     

Government Risk Management Priorities: A Comparison of the Preferences of Asian Indian Americans and Other Americans

A survey was conducted of approximately 200 Asian Indian Americans and 200 other residents of New Jersey in order to understand the risk management priorities that they want government to have. We found that Asian Indian Americans, especially younger women, focused on personal/family risks, such as alcohol and drug abuse, sexual abuse, and domestic violence. The New Jersey comparison group, in contrast, placed war/terrorism and loss of health care services and insurance at the top of their priorities for government. These results suggest stressful acculturation-related issues within the Asian Indian community. Both populations want more risk management from government than they believe government is currently providing. Respondents who wanted more from government tended to dread the risk, be fearful of the consequences, trust government, and have a feeling of personal efficacy. Within the Asian Indian American sample, wide variations were observed by language spoken at home and religious affiliation. Notably, Muslims and Hindi language speakers tended not to trust government and hence wanted less government involvement. This study supports our call for studies of recent migrant populations and Johnson's for testing ethnic identity and acculturation as factors in risk judgments.     

Communicating about the Risks and Benefits of Genetically Modified Foods: The Mediating Role of Trust

Recent research suggests that public attitudes toward emerging technologies are mainly driven by trust in the institutions promoting and regulating these technologies. Alternative views maintain that trust should be seen as a consequence rather than a cause of such attitudes. To test its actual role, direct as well as mediating effects of trust were tested in an attitude change experiment involving 1,405 consumers from Denmark, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom. After prior attitudes to genetic modification in food production had been assessed, participants received different information materials (either product-specific information or balanced/general information about genetic modification in food production) and were asked to evaluate different types of genetically modified foods (either beer or yoghurt). The information materials were attributed to different information sources (either an industry association, a consumer organization, or a government source). After completion, perceived risk and perceived benefit were assessed, and participants indicated their trust in the information sources to which the materials had been attributed. Direct and trust-mediated attitude change effects were estimated in a multi-sample structural equation model. The results showed that information provision had little effect on people's attitudes toward genetically modified foods, and that perceptions of information source characteristics contributed very little to attitude change. Furthermore, the type of information strategy adopted had almost no impact on postexperimental attitudes. The extent to which people trusted the information sources appeared to be driven by people's attitudes to genetically modified foods, rather than trust influencing the way that people reacted to the information. Trust was not driving risk perception-rather, attitudes were informing perceptions of the motivation of the source providing the information.     

Multilevel causal attributions on transboundary risk: Effects on attributions of responsibility,psychological distance,and policy support

This study used two randomized experiments in a prospective design (Study 1 N = 297, Study 2 N = 296) to examine how multilevel causal attribution dimensions (internal vs. external to an individual or a country) shape domestic and foreign policy support to counter transboundary risk. Results from Study 1 and 2 showed that external-country (vs. internal-country) causal attribution reduced perceptions of internal-country attributions of responsibility, which had a cross-lagged effect on support for domestic-industry policies to mitigate the risk. In contrast, perceptions of external-country attributions of responsibility increased support for foreign policies in a 2-week follow up. This study offers theoretical insights into the demarcation of multilevel causal attribution dimensions in studying media framing effects. It also highlights some important causal mechanisms of how media frames shape public support for policies aimed at transboundary risk mitigation.     

The role, function, and contribution of attribution theory to leadership: A review

The purpose of this article is to review literature that has focused on the role of attributions in leadership processes and to explore and explain how the study of attributions does, and can, contribute to our understanding of the dynamics of leadership. The historical roots of attribution research are discussed, along with early attributional research in the leadership area. Two streams of attributional criticisms are addressed and recent attributional research relevant to leadership is reviewed. We argue and demonstrate that attributions account for significant proportions of the variance in leadership behaviors. We conclude with suggestions for including attributional perspectives in comprehensive models of leader behavior.     

战略联盟内部的相互信任及其建立机制

战略联盟是近年来涌现的企业发展战略中极为重要的一种组织形式,也是管理理论界探讨的热门话题之一。本文探讨了战略联盟内部成员企业在组建和运转过程中的相互信任问题,剖析了战略联盟内部相互信任的定义、作用及其形式,并提出了建立相互信任的各种措施。     

Cooperation in the Face of Conflict: Effects of Top Managers’ Trust Beliefs in their Firms’ Major Suppliers

As with any relationships, those between buying firms and their major suppliers are likely to experience situations of conflict. When facing such situations, top managers tend to approach conflict either cooperatively or competitively. However, when and why top managers tend towards cooperation or competition is far from clear. This study proposes a novel link between the theory of cooperation and competition and the discounting principle of attribution theory to argue that it is top managers’ trust beliefs in their firms’ major suppliers that influences their intended approach to conflict. Using survey data from 140 C‐level managers and business owners, the authors develop and test a model that differentiates between two attributional dimensions of trust (competence and goodwill) and the specific relational conditions that influence how these attributions operate. The results indicate that top managers’ trust in their suppliers’ competence and goodwill is, in fact, decisive in determining how they intend to approach conflict. Further, the authors demonstrate that a top manager's trust belief in the supplier's goodwill is of particular relevance in driving the top manager to cooperate in the face of conflict. However, this link seems to be contingent on the specific conditions of the buyer–supplier relationship in question.     

New information and social trust: asymmetry and perseverance of attributions about hazard managers.

It has been argued that news about negative events has a much stronger effect on decreasing social trust than does news about positive events on increasing it. This asymmetry principle of trust was investigated in two surveys that also investigated the perseverance of trust. The possibility that established trust attributions persevere in the face of new information raises questions about the limits of trust asymmetry. The two studies yielded evidence that both type of news (good versus bad) and initial general trust in the nuclear power industry or the food supply industry affected level of trust. Compared to individuals trusting the industry, those distrusting the industry exhibited less trust following both bad and good news events. Study I also found that judged informativeness and judged positiveness of news events were affected by type of news and general trust of the industry. Individuals low in general trust of the nuclear power industry judged both bad news and good news as less positive than did those high in general trust. Those low in general trust judged bad news as more informative than good news and than did those high in general trust. An important implication of the perseverance of trust is to focus attention on including not only the effects of information about specific events and actions, but also on the judgment processes underlying social trust. The Salient Value Similarity model is suggested as one way of accounting for these psychological processes.     

Crime and the Decline of Unions

In this paper we investigate the relationship between union membership and crime. Using state level data between 1993 and 2006, we find the elasticity of crime with respect to union membership is roughly −0.5. From our results, we predict the decline in union membership has increased crime by 15 per cent since 1993. Furthermore, we find the elasticity between union jobs and crime is larger in absolute value when using an instrumental variable approach to control for the impact unions have on labor market efficiency.