Synthesis: A Broad Perspective on Trust

Abstract

Trust is a subject of ongoing theoretical debate. The conceptions of trust that researchers put forward are diverse, and scholars routinely bemoan the troublesome theoretical plurality and fragmentation of trust research. A number of examples have been presented and discussed in this work. In short, the question of subjective experience is one of the prime reasons for the “confusing potpourri” (Shapiro 1987: 625) of trust definitions in the literature. Scholars focus on different phenomenological aspects and different sources of trust-related knowledge in defining the concept. As a consequence, trust definitions become too narrow and “homonymous,” preventing theoretical formulations and empirical results from accumulating and becoming comparable (McKnight & Chervany 1996).