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The purpose of this chapter is to investigate the question of whether corporate social responsibility (CSR) can be used as a link of trust between business and society, and which role CSR plays in recovering distrust in businesses. It uses a mixed methods study of processes of moving businesses within the Danish water sector from a general trust-breakdown to trust recovery from 2003 to 2013.

Trust recovery is found to depend on stakeholders’ mutual engagement with each other and their willingness to share knowledge and learn from each other’s professional and institutional cultures and languages. An alignment of vocabularies of motives between regulation and voluntary CSR is found to be useful for building trust between conflicting parties. Furthermore the findings shows that the more stakeholders’ languages, motives and logics can coexist, the more trust can be recovered.

The research is limited by a study of one business sector in one country and the findings have implications greater than the local contexts of which it is researched, because it is usable in other sectors that suffer from severe trust-breakdowns such as government systems in both the public and private sectors.

This chapter suggests a theoretical extension of Bogenschneider and Corbett’s (2010) Community Dissonance Theory to embrace multiple stakeholders each having their own complex and unique culture and communication modus based on their institutional, professional or individual comprehensive language universes. This includes knowledge-sharing and educative diffusion of the stakeholders’ language universes’ vocabularies including its important nouns, verbs, terminologies, semantics, taxonomies and axioms as well as the stakeholders’ motives and logics implemented into these universes.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the trust‐related aspect of the work of school principals. The authors' exploratory examination of the Canadian school principals' perceptions of their moral agency and trust‐brokering roles described their establishing, maintaining, and recovering of trust in schools. This article is delimited to the selected perceptions of Canadian principals' regarding the fragile nature of trust in their school settings.

This study used the open‐ended responses from surveys sent to school principals (n=177), who responded to the authors' invitation to complete a survey, as part of a larger study, in the ten provinces and three territories of Canada. The data analyses included theme and cross‐theme analyses.

This study has pointed to the perception that trust‐related matters are an important, yet a fragile, aspect of the work of principals. Principals often have to deal with trust‐related matters, which have caused trustworthiness to be threatened and trusting relationships to be broken. Trust‐related problems contribute to the fragility of trust and frequently seem to pertain to relationships between principal and other administrators, staff members, parents, and students. Most of the time, principals as leaders felt personal responsibility to make sure relationships among all stakeholders were sustained and, if broken, restored. The prevalent belief among participants in the study was that trusting relationships, though fragile and often broken, are subject to the hope of restoration and renewal.

This study provided valuable findings that enhance the understanding of ethical decision making and trust brokering amongst the Canadian school principals. While the discussions of trust and moral agency are certainly present in the educational literature, not much is known about the self‐perceived role of a principal as both a moral agent and trust broker. Moreover, there is perceived need for qualitative studies in the area of trust in educational leadership.

The paper initially engages in a discussion of the different concepts of trust promulgated over the years via a review of the literature. Trust is then discussed in the context of three management accounting situations, viz. the typical transfer pricing situation; the (equally) typical budget setting process; and, finally, the rather more specific situation of the accounting information system (here utilising the concept of action at a distance) employed within a particular construction company. So whilst two of the management accounting applications examined are from a theoretical perspective, the third is empirically based (if only because of the dearth of theoretical literature available in the relevant domain)

The purpose of this paper is to understand what breaks trust in a customer supplier relationship and how to repair it.

The approach takes a single case study to test the established theories on trust. It captures the circumstances and conditions of everyday situation in business and it is a longitudinal study covering three years' experience of two organisations in business.

The important findings of this case study are that knowledge, level of risk and level of risk tolerance of customers/suppliers are the main causes of trust break down. Though the research on trust focus on partner's characteristics such as benevolence, honesty, reliability, credibility, integrity, contracts, agreements etc., in the context of B2B relationship these perspectives can only help the partners in evaluating the other partner as trust worthy. Once the partners engage in the relationship the orientation will change towards perspectives of rational risk. If the risk level exceeds their bearable limits, trust will break. Trust repair depends on the convincing power of the trustees, and how and why the trustor should bear the uncertainty or risk involved in the relationship.

With its focus on two business partners this case cannot be generalised to all business settings. However, the in‐depth analysis stimulates further research on how trust may break between partners and how and who (trustor/trustee) should initiate trust repair process.

Practicing managers and research scholars can use this case in trust building process in customer supplier relationship.

The paper presents a case that is original.

It is well known that trust is an essential, yet a fragile part of organizational life. Because trust sometimes has to be placed without guarantees, it will inevitably be broken, violated, and damaged when parties involved in trustworthy relationships let others down. When trust-destroying events occur, trust is shattered and its level plummets quickly into the domain of distrust. The speed with which trust can be destroyed depends on the magnitude of damage from the act of untrustworthiness and the perceived intentionality of the untrustworthiness. Moreover, if seen as intentional, the destruction of trust is particularly severe, as intentional untrustworthiness reveals malevolent intentions that are seen as highly predictive of future untrustworthiness. Often, leaders are the ones responsible for improper handling of, destroying, or violating trust in their organizations. In this chapter, we explore the consequences of leaders for violating trust and examine how trust changes over time as a function of different types of violations and attempts at restoration. We argue that because distrust may irrevocably harm organizations, leaders as moral agents need to consciously work to rebuild relationships, restore broken trust, and instill hope.

The purpose of this paper is to provide practical knowledge on how to repair trust within inter-organisational relationships (IORs), and to compare that knowledge to present academic research. IORs have an alarming failure rate upwards of 60 per cent. Although the breakdown of trust is a well-documented critical component of their failure, specific research on IOR trust repair is limited.

The research applied a ranked Delphi study utilising UK professionals’ expertise in IOR management.

The results provide two practical frameworks and several new methods for IOR trust repair; furthermore, they demonstrate consistency between professionally adopted IOR trust repair methods and those proposed academically.

The study ' s primary limitations resulted from being conducted at the lower end of its operating window, and only with panellists interested in trust repair. The implications for research are to direct investigations to the new IOR trust repair methods and to test when professionals would undertake trust repair methods.

The IOR trust repair frameworks can be utilised retrospectively as a tool kit to repair damaged relationships. Additionally, they can be proactively embedded in IOR contract documentation, whereby parties agree to enact and abide by the frameworks, should relations deteriorate, before proceeding down legal avenues.

This paper offers the first contribution from the UK professional community on IOR trust repair; they have provided new research areas for academics as well as practicable, pertinent frameworks for professionals.

The objective of this paper is to present different perspectives on building “trust” among supply chain participants working on construction projects.

A case study methodology was adopted; with five construction projects selected as five case studies for the trust in construction project on the basis a selection criteria devised for the research project. Over 40 interviews were conducted with participants operating at different levels in their respective organisations and at different point in the supply chain.

The information provided by the multiple informants was, to a large extent, consistent with much of the academic literature relating to the importance of and barriers to trust. Specifically, the case studies highlighted: what people within the construction industry understand by trust, reliance, and honest professional relationship; the key factors that contribute towards building trust and factors that result into breakdown of trust; and organisational and project related factors that influence trust and relationships among people within the industry.

The findings from this study are limited due to: a small number of case studies undertaken, focused within the North West Region of England, and limited time and resources available. However, the ideas proposed for ways to develop trust in construction projects as seen from project findings have important implications for not only the clients but also for the main contractors and sub‐contractors who need to pay greater attention to build trusting and long‐term relationship as part of an integrated supply chain in order to deliver the continuous demand for services especially from public sector clients.

If more businesses operating in the construction sector gave more thought to the importance of trust in construction projects then this could have a significant impact on contract design and over all procurement strategy. Specifically the repetitive work carried out by the local authorities in the UK, such as school building and maintenance, social housing stock improvement, etc., can be subcontracted to the contractors on a longer term basis resulting into long term supply chain relationship among organisations and cost savings.

The research is among the first attempts in response to Latham report published in 1994, in order to explore the role of trust in construction projects, from the perspective of multiple stakeholders. The paper provides insights into the practical issues that prevent the widespread development of trust within the construction industry, which is a challenge that clearly warrants further attention from academics and practitioners.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of damage incurred by the trustor as a result of a trust violation and the impact of different levels of post-violation trust repair behaviours by the trustee on the subsequent erosion of trust.

Data were collected from 232 middle to senior level managers using a two-part scenario-based experimental design to test the impact of damage incurred (avoided) and post-violation repair behaviour. Respondents’ levels of trust were measured pre- and post-violation as well as forgiving and a range of demographic variables.

Results showed that trust eroded independent of the level of damage that may have been caused. Further, post-violation trust repair behaviour by the trustee led to a significantly lower erosion of trust as compared to not engaging in such behaviours. Furthermore, erosion of trust was minimized, when the trustee engaged in increasing levels of trust repair behaviour. Results also showed that trustors who were relatively more forgiving were less likely to lose trust in the trustee after a violation.

In this study we focused on two key factors influencing the erosion of trust. Further factors need to be identified and empirically tested in order to get a more holistic view on how trust erodes. The results serve as one step towards building an integrated model of trust erosion.

For practicing managers, the results imply that the actual incurrence or avoidance of damages from a trust violation appears to be peripheral – trustors are more concerned about the violation as a principle and a harbinger of similar future incidents. Further, quickly engaging in trust repair behaviours, such as offering an a good explanation, a heartfelt apology, and appropriate remedy, helps minimize the erosion of trust.

This paper addresses an under-investigated facet of trust research in organizations – erosion of trust – which is especially crucial in light of the growing awareness that most organizational relationships actually start off with high levels of trust rather than low trust. Thus, this study offers insights into maintaining (as opposed to building) trust.

The purpose of this paper is to explore ethical challenges and dilemmas that exist within admissions systems at colleges and universities in the USA.

Although the issues considered herein are examined primarily from the perspective of admissions officers, this paper also considers the viewpoint of prospective students (and their parents) who are seeking to gain entrance to specific institutions of higher education. The ethical concerns of admissions officers and prospective students within the admissions process is explored through conceptual analysis of a trilogy of ethical concerns and arguments regarding the higher education admissions process in the USA.

Part I of the trilogy explores the admissions profession as a calling, discusses some of the ethical issues currently involved in the admissions field, and makes the argument that most of these ethical issues are rooted in a breakdown of the admissions system in two areas – access and trust. Part II of the trilogy focuses on the ethical pressures that are encountered by various types of post‐secondary educational institutions as the admissions process unfolds. These pressures are examined in the context of an ethical typology that describes the admissions practices of colleges and universities in terms of the congruency between their espoused and enacted values. The degree of congruency between espoused and enacted values defines whether the admissions process is viewed as immoral, pseudo‐moral, or moral – and each view has important implications for the efficacy and fairness of college and university admissions. Part III of the trilogy examines three categories of ethical dilemmas – recruiting, personal biases in admissions decisions, and conflicts between personal ethical standards and institutional directives – that confront admissions officers on a daily basis. The implications of these dilemmas are considered relative to three general types of schools: ultra selective colleges and universities, non‐selective private colleges and universities, and large state‐funded public colleges and universities.

The admission systems at colleges and universities in the USA provide fertile ground for the development of ethical challenges and dilemmas regarding which prospective students will gain entry into which academic institutions. Recognizing these ethical challenges and dilemmas and effectively dealing with them is a professional imperative for admissions officers and the academic institutions they represent. Conceptualizing the ethical challenges of admissions within the context of access and trust provides an innovative approach guiding admissions professionals toward moral decisions and actions regarding who is admitted to their respective institutions.

The enormous financial losses during the economic crash in Iceland led to widespread anxieties, coupled with a deep sense of shared national disaster and moral collapse (Bernburg, 2015; Ólafsson, 2014). The strong sense of betrayal indicates how economic processes are not only about economic prosperity, but are embedded also in wider societal discourses and a sense of national identity (Schwegler, 2009). We use perspectives from anthropology and cultural economics to ask how the lack of trust by the Icelandic population after the crash signals both a different way of visualising Iceland’s role within an increasingly global world and a changing sense of Icelanders as national subjects standing unified against foreigners. Iceland’s neo-liberalisation inserted the country into global institutions and processes with the faith that these processes would automatically be beneficial to Iceland. Furthermore, the sense of some kind of a unified Icelandic subject was manifested in the image of the ‘Business Viking’, which was seen as embodying the interest of the Icelandic nation as a whole. Following the economic crash, the betrayal of trust involved disrupting the idea of the ‘oneness’ of Iceland and thus, the sharp distinction between ‘us’ Icelanders and ‘those’ foreigners. In our discussion, we trace different ways of conceptualising this sense of Icelanders as a unified entity, asking what this notion means in terms of trust. Our research shows how the sense of ‘unified Icelanders’ was instrumental in creating the feeling of trust, and how it is possible to manipulate and appropriate that trust.