Trust Repair

Abstract

Trust is critical for building and maintaining relationships and for effectively working together. When trust is broken, it has serious consequences for both individuals and organizations. In this review we examine the research on how to repair broken trust. We begin by defining trust, how it is broken, how the actor's violation is attributed, and what it means to repair it. We then discuss two dominant trust repair strategies: short-term and long-term. Short-term strategies include verbal statements such as excuses, apologies, and denials, and compensatory arrangements such as repayment for a loss. Longer-term strategies include structural rearrangements of the relationship (e.g., contracts, monitoring), reframing the violation (e.g., attempts to shift blame, mitigate perceptions of harm), granting forgiveness, and remaining silent. Lastly, we discuss concerns for the future of trust research such as construct clarity, measurement, and contextual considerations.

Repairing violations of trustworthiness in negotiation

“…There have been several comprehensive reviews of the trust repair literature (see Dirks, Lewicki & Zaheer, ; Kramer & Lewicki, ; Bachman, Gillespie & Priem, ; Lewicki & Brinsfield, ). A number of these reviews have addressed trust repair at the interpersonal level, while others (e.g., Bachman et al, ) have addressed it at the organizational level.…”

“…Within the context of a negotiation, there are multiple ways in which trust can be repaired (Kramer & Lewicki, ; Lewicki & Brinsfield, ; Lewicki & Polin, ). For instance, the “violator” can offer some form of verbal account, such as an apology .…”

“…Lewicki and Brinsfield () note that a variety of verbal statements, or accounts, have been examined to determine their relative effectiveness in trust repair following a trust breach (Brinsfield, ; Ferrin, Kim, Cooper & Dirks, ). Verbal accounts can take various forms, such as an excuse, explanation, apology, or even a denial: all are variations of a verbal statement designed to acknowledge that the violation occurred and explain how it occurred.…”

“…Verbal accounts can take various forms, such as an excuse, explanation, apology, or even a denial: all are variations of a verbal statement designed to acknowledge that the violation occurred and explain how it occurred. In an apology—one subset form of an account—the apologizer may add information to the verbal account by taking some responsibility for the violation, and also include “emotional content” to the message in the form of explaining the intent behind the violation, offering an expression of regret and sometimes making a promise of change in the future (Lewicki & Brinsfield, ).…”

An Empirical Examination of Organisational Trust Recovery: Influences and Implications

“…An apology may also include emotional content to explain the reasons for the violation and/or promise behaviour change (Lewicki and Brinsfield, 2017). The use of apologies is considered advantageous to organizations in that apologies allow an organization to publicly accept accountability for negative actions (Lewicki and Brinsfield, 2017), and gain the opportunity to explain or attempt to make amends by reassuring customers of their good intentions (Xie and Peng, 2009;Kramer and Lewicki, 2010;Zhang, 2012;Kim et al, 2013). The use of apologies is considered advantageous to organizations in that apologies allow an organization to publicly accept accountability for negative actions (Lewicki and Brinsfield, 2017), and gain the opportunity to explain or attempt to make amends by reassuring customers of their good intentions (Xie and Peng, 2009;Kramer and Lewicki, 2010;Zhang, 2012;Kim et al, 2013).…”