Trusting as a ‘Leap of Faith’: Trust-building practices in client–consultant relationships

Abstract

Successful client-consultant relationships depend on trust, but trusting is difficult in the nonroutine, high-stake context of consulting. Based on a sample of 15 clients and 16 consultants in Australia, we develop a grounded model that explains the process of trust granting in the context of client-consultant relationships. Our model builds upon two influential research streams on trust in the literature, the ABI model (Mayer et al., 1995) and Zucker's (1986) generic modes of trust, and combines their insights with a process perspective on trusting as proposed by Möllering (2001). By acknowledging the process nature of trust as a leap of faith resulting from socio-cognitive (-emotional) interactions we move away from the passive evaluation of trustworthiness. Our findings suggest that trusting is a process that involves three social practices: (1) signaling ability and integrity; (2) demonstrating benevolence; and (3) establishing an emotional connection. Our study contributes to the trust literature on consulting and to trust research more generally by advancing a process approach and emphasizing the social, not merely mental, nature of trusting as involving a leap of faith.

Reputation and identity conflict in management consulting

“…Sturdy et al, 2013;Nikolova et al, 2014) but we build on that finding to show how it enabled buffering between identity claims and reputation via a process of building strong mutual identity with the client which was reinforced by the consultants actually being embedded within the client organization. This approach is meant to signal the requisite reputational qualities of competence and 'can-do' requiring substantial commitment and extra effort by the consulting teams (Pollock et al, 2015).…”

“…Trust building therefore has to go beyond demonstrating credentials or what Nikolova et al (2014) call 'good reasons' to trust. Their model has both cognitive and emotional dimensions focusing on alignment of expectations on work processes and outcomes as well as 'likability' or an affective connection.…”

Partners and plagiarisers: dualities in consultants’ influence on organisational change projects

“…Werr and Styhre (2003) observe that managers sometimes face tensions between using consultants to help advance their own careers and using them to achieve wider objectives for the benefit of their organisations. Whether managers like particular consultants, and their personal chemistry with them, influences their willingness to give them repeat business, and liking and personal chemistry may be affected by the consultants' willingness to support their personal agenda (Chelliah and Davis, 2010;Nikolova et al, 2015). Beckhard and Harris (1987) recommend that organisation development practitioners should make systematic 'maps' of the readiness for change, and the capability to bring about change, of key stakeholders in an organisation.…”

Information Sharing in Military Operations

“…The decision to trust is always a prediction and a leap of faith (Holmes 1989;Mollering 2006;Nikolova et al 2015) based on four dimensions of another's trustworthiness: competence (i.e., the perceived abilities, skills, and knowledge of the other); benevolence (i.e., the perception that the other has positive, unselfish motives); integrity (i.e., the perception that the other adheres to common and valued principles) and, in some models, predictability 1 (i.e., behavioral consistency; Mayer et al 1995; see also Rousseau et al 1998;Joyal 2012;Nikolova et al 2015). These dimensions of trustworthiness are relevant to multinational-multi-agency teams (Thompson and 1 Some models of trust do not include predictability.…”