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

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 of trust 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 and advance the concept of trust in the public sector literature on board work. This paper shows that trust is complex and multidimensional at different units of analysis. The types of trust discussed 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.

Citation

Höglund, L., Mårtensson, M. and Safari, A. (2019), "The impact of types of trust in the public sector – a case study approach", International Journal of Public Sector Management, Vol. 32 No. 3, pp. 247-263. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJPSM-08-2017-0226