Trust

Daniel Z. Levin
Rutgers University

Entry in S. R. Clegg & J. R. Bailey (Eds.), 2008, International Encyclopedia of Organization Studies (pp. 1573-1579). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

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Abstract

This 3,300-word encyclopedia entry summarizes and offers a taxonomy of the literature on trust. Drawing on a variety of empirical research studies, it provides an overview—for both researchers and laypeople—of trust-related concepts and how these concepts interrelate. For example, this entry answers such questions as: What are the main dimensions of trustworthiness? On what basis do people decide if you are trustworthy or not? It also outlines a number of unresolved conceptual issues related to trust, as well as questions about how trust works in practice.

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