Trust-Significance, Definitions and Dimensions: A Literature Search

This is a literature based paper addressing the significance, definitions and dimensions of trust. Trust is a crucial subject matter for many social science disciplines. Researchers could reveal that trust reduces risk, increases productivity, builds a strong relationship between the colleagues in the work place, helps in transferring knowledge between the individuals and organisations, builds team work, minimizes controls, reduces expenditures, reduces competitive attitudes and makes decision making easy. Trust is difficult to define. Researchers and theorists have defined trust in different ways. Trust is defined in numerous ways. Trust dimensions show the various elements and ingredients of trust constituting trust. The definitions and dimensions of trust identified by the researchers are frequently repetitive and concurrent. Future researchers may empirically examine the impact of trust dimension on various issues in the organisations


INTRODUCTION
Trust is a multi-disciplinary theme. It is a subject matter of many social science disciples (Bhattacherjee, 2002;Hasnain, 2017) occupying an indispensable criterion for solving many social and organisational anxieties. In any environment where trust prevails, individuals may work comfortably and without any panic. Lucas (2005) claims, "trust allows one to focus on other issues knowing that those with whom we are involved will either protect our interests or not engaged in activities that are harmful" (p. 89). Many researchers (Zaheer, McEvily and Perrone, 1998;McEvily, Perrone and Zaheer, 2003;Ashleigh and Stanton, 2001;Gutteling, Hanssen, van der Veer, and Seydel, 2006;Poppo, Zhou and Ryu, 2008;Parks, Henager and Scamahorn, 1996;Abrams, Cross, Lesser and Levin, 2003;Staples and Webster, 2008;Renzl, 2008;Lucas, 2005;Holste and Fields, 2005;Ashleigh, Connell and Klein, 2003;Becerra, Lunnan and Huemer, 2008;Usoroet al., 2007;Wang, Ashleigh and Meyer, 2006;Mayer, Davies and Schoorman, 1995;Nahapiet and Ghoshal, 1998;Tsai and Ghoshal, 1998;McAllister, 1995) have investigated the impact of trust on numerous issues.So it is crucial to know the significance, definitions and dimensions of this crucial variable and this paper addresses these issues.

A BRIEF DISCUSSION ON SIGNIFICANCE OF TRUST
In the organisations where trusting atmosphere prevails colleagues may rely on the behaviour of each other and helps to make a strong informal society. Trust helps to increase interdependency and minimizes risks in working relationships (Mayer, Davis and Schoorman, 1995) and thus a harmonious working atmosphere develops. Knowledge transfer is essential in the organisations. Without trust knowledge transfer is difficult. Trust ensures learning from each other (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995).For example, the employees may learn the techniques and procedures from the experienced colleagues through knowledge transfer.
It is difficult for the managers to work without delegation. Delegation reduces the work load and responsibilities of the leaders and managers. Trust ensures effective delegation (Castelfranchi and Falcone, 1998) to the subordinates and colleagues. So trust reduces the centralisation of power in the organisation and helps the organisations to be more democratic. Trust helps in team working (Pyöriä, 2007), leadership (Bennis and Nanus, 1985), theproduction and supply of quality products and services (Peterson, 1998). It works as the lubrication in the organisational process (Bijlsma and Koopman, 2003;Bennis and Nanus, 1985) and helps to avoid unnecessary interactions (Pyöriä, 2007), ensures less control and reduces expenditure (Creed and Miles, 1996) and also helps to prevent any waste of time.
At the macro level trust makes significant contributions. In this regard Fukuyama (1996) found, "one of the most important lessons we can learn from an examination of economic life is that a nation's well-being, as well as its ability to compete, is conditioned by a single, pervasive cultural characteristic: the level of trust inherent in the society" (p. 7). More specifically, a country's prosperity is directly related to the trusting attitude of that nation. A trusting atmosphere among the citizens of a country helps to accelerate its socio-economic development.
Trust makes the decision making process easy and helps in generating quality decisions. McEvily, Perrone and Zaheer (2003) argue that, "trust makes decision making more efficient by simplifying the acquisition and interpretation of information" (p. 93). They continued by arguing, "trust also guides action by suggesting behaviours and routines that are most viable and beneficial under the assumption that the trusted counterpart will not exploit one's vulnerability" (p. 93). For example, in many cases the beneficiaries of social organisations disclose their confidential personal information to social workers, trusting that the latter would show them the right remedial measures and that their personal information will not be misused or exploited.
Trust helps in eliminating jealousy and non-cooperative movements. Parks, Henager and Scamahorn's (1996) study findsthat high trust reduces competitive attitudes and creates cooperative attitudes. They argued, "the response to one's intentions is affected by the level of trust the opponent holds: high trusters respond to cooperative messages; low trusters response to competitive messages (p. 148). Again, several researchers, (Rotter, 1980;Johnson-George and Swap, 1982;Swap and Rubin, 1983;Rempel, Holmes, Zana, 1985) highlighted the important role of trust in close relationships. Trust is the main phenomenon in human relationships, and has powerful capabilities and consequences in close human social bonds.
In the organisations, untrustworthy atmosphere has various adverse impacts. Creed and Miles (1996) exhibit the cost factors associated with control mechanisms in organisations, and the costs of building trust to meet minimal requirements. Showing the consequences and the impacts of trust failure in different structures of organisations, they concluded by arguing "… in the functional forms, trust failures reduce efficiency; in divisional forms they reduce effectiveness, and raises costs; in matrix forms, they cause the form to fail; and in networks, they cause the firms to fail." (p. 26). Ultimately such organisations fail to achieve their strategic and social intents in the business environment.
Trust works as a strong monitoring tool in any context. Trust as an informal control mechanism helps to decrease friction, puts spontaneous restrictions on opportunistic behaviour, shrinks bureaucratic roles, encourages potential dealings and sets up long term relationships (Bhattacherjee, 2002). Thus trust works as a magical catalyst in the organisations.

TRUST-DEFINITIONS AND DIMENSIONS
The dimensions of trust are the ingredients borrowed from the trust definitions, or vice versa. It is difficult to define trust (Huotari and Livonen, 2004;Holste, 2003;Holste & Fields, 2010). Trust is a complicated construct, though it has abundant definitions (Rousseau, Sitkin, Burt and Camerer, 1998). A few important definitions of trust are: (i) "The willingness of a party to be vulnerable to the actions of another party based on expectation that the other will perform a particular action important to the truster, irrespective of the ability to monitor or control that party" (Mayer, Davis and Schoorman, 1995, p.712) (ii) "Trust is a psychological state comprising the intention to accept vulnerability based upon positive expectations of the intentions or behavior of another" (Rousseau et al., 1998, p.395) (iii) " Trust is the expectation that arises within a community of regular, honest, and cooperative behaviour, based on commonly shared norms, on the part of other members of that community" (Fukuyama , 1996, p. 26) (iv) "An expectancy held by an individual or a group that the word, promise, verbal or written statement of another individual or group can be relied upon" (Rotter, 1967, p. 651) (v) "A social resource which can be drawn upon to achieve organisational goal" (Ashleigh, Connell and Klein, 2003, p. 2) (vi) " A belief by a person in the integrity of another person" (Larzelere and Huston , 1980 p. 595) (vii) "The extent to which a person is confident in, and willing to act on the basis of, the words, actions, and decisions of another" (McAllister, 1995, p. 25) (viii) " Trust is one party's willingness to be vulnerable to another party based on the belief that the later party is (a) competent, (b) open, (c) concerned, and (d) reliable (Mishra, 1996, p.265) (ix) " Trust is practised and exercised between individuals, even if they "stand for" an organisation" (Hoecht and Trott (1999, p. 260) (x) "Trust is an actor's expectation of the other party's capability, goodwill and self reliance, which needs to be confirmed by experience. Thus, trust is increased by-and decreased by the lack of-evidence of these components in parties actual behavior and communication" (Blomqvist and Ståhle, 2004, p. 180) (xi) "An individual's belief or a common belief among a group of individuals that another individual or group (1) makes good-faith efforts to behave in accordance with any commitments both explicit or implicit, (2) is honest in whatever negotiations preceded such commitments, and (c) does not take excessive advantage of another even the opportunity is available" (Cummings and Bromiley, 1996, p. 303) and (xii) " Trust is a bet about the future contingent actions of others" (Sztompka, 1999, p. 25).
Fukuyama's (1995) definition of trust enveloped the vital factors of regularity, honesty and cooperation in behaviour. Similarly, Rousseau et al. (1998) emphasised the positive behaviour of parties in the definition. Mishra (1996) highlighted issues of competency, openness, concerns and reliability. Blomqvist and Ståhle (2004) identify trust as an interaction between expectations and the demonstration of those expectations in the real behaviour of the parties involved. In Fukuyama's (1996) definition of trust, honesty and cooperative behaviour were emphasized, while the attribute of ability is incorporated in the definition of Mayer, et al. (1995). Usoroet al., (2007) had empirical study on the impact of benevolence, integrity and ability on knowledge transfer. They (2007) found that the dimensions of Mishra's (1996) definition, concern, reliability, and competence, are a mirror to the definition of Mayeret al. (1995). It clear that this definition is focused on human personality traits. Many definitions (Mishra, 1996;Usoro et al., 2007) cited above, echo similar views and opinions to Mayer et al. (1995), whose definition of trust is intensively used and has been cited by many theorists and researchers (Rousseau et al., 1998;Lucas, 2005;Ashleighet al.,2003;Usoro et al., 2007;Li, 2005;Szulanski, Cappetta and Jensen, 2004;Levin and Cross, 2004;Bhattacherjee , 2002;Hoell, 2004;McEvily, Perrone and Zaheer, 2003;Ashleigh and Stanton, 2001;Levin, Whitener and Cross, 2006;Ford, 2004) . Mayer, et al. (1995) defined trust as, "the willingness of a party to be vulnerable to the actions of another party based on expectation that the other will perform a particular action important to the trustor, irrespective of the ability to monitor or control that party" (p. 712). In their model of trust (p. 715), the three factors of ability, benevolence and integrity of another party are identified as the basis of trust. Mayer et al.(1995) also differentiated trust from cooperation, confidence and predictability. They argued that without trust cooperation may take place, as trust is not an essential prerequisite to cooperation. Regarding confidence, they referred to Luhmann (1988) who differentiated confidence from trust, arguing that trust is associated with risk, that is, the question of trust comes where there is risk. Confidence eliminates risk. Further, Mayer et al. (1995) also differentiated predictability from trust, arguing that predictablity reduces risk and trust must go beyond predictability to face vulnerability. They cited an example, "if a person's superior always 'shoots the messenger' when the bad news is delivered, the superior is predictable. However, that predictability will not increase the likelihood that the individual will take a risk and deliver bad news. On the contrary, predictability can reduce the likelihood that the individual will trust and therefore take actions that allow venerability to the superior." (p. 714). Trust is contextual and may vary in different situations. Several authors (Fukuyama, 1995;Mayer, et al.,1995;Mishra, 1996;Rempel, Holmes and Zanna, 1985;Butler, 1991;Cummings and Bromiley, 1996;Doney and Cannon, 1997;Zaheer, McEvily and Perrone, 1998) have identified different trust antecedents and factors on which the actions of the actors involved in the transaction depend.

CONCLUSION AND FUTURE RESEARCH
Trust is a crucial ingredient of many social science disciplines. It is one of the indispensible panacea to many social and organisational problems. Trust helps to develop a good working relationship in the organisations and managers may delegate their authorities and responsibilities to the subordinates comfortably. Trust works like lubricants by which organisations may develop effective and smooth teams, leaders and control mechanisms. Many researchers and theorists find it as a catalyst to smooth functioning of the nations and the organisations. Numerous fruitful advantages are described by the authors. Some of them find that (i) trust makes the decision making effective and simple (ii) trust reduces competitive attitudes (iii) trust helps developing close human relationships (iv) trust makes the organisations' control mechanisms easy and effective (v) trust reduces costs in the organisations (vi) trust increases organisational efficiency (vii) trust ensures quality and helps to increase productivity. It is not easy to define trust. There are many definitions and dimensions oftrust. They are often concurrent and repetitive in nature. Some definitions and dimensions areoverlapping with each other. Regularity, honesty and cooperation arethe ingredients of Fukuyama's (1995) trust, while Mayer et al. (1995) have ability, benevolence and integrity. Usoro et al. (2007) and Mishra (1996) definitions of trust are echoing the trust dimensions of Mayer et al. (1995). The maximum trust dimensions (e.g. ability, benevolence and integrity) presented by Mayer et al (1995). However, earlier the trust dimensions like benevolence and honesty was given by . Highlighting the trust dimensions, Ashleigh and Stanton comprehensively shows " Emotive constructs (confidence, respect, commitments and team work), cognitive constructs (understanding : knowledge, experience and familiarity) and behavioural constructs ( honesty, reliability, proactive, performance, communication and quality of interaction)". Future Researchers may empirically investigate the definitions and dimensions of trust in any organisational context.