This Special Issue reexamines how organizations balance control and trust; two forces that shape collaboration, governance, and performance. While control provides structure and accountability, trust fosters commitment and cooperation. Understanding how the two interact is crucial for navigating today’s complex organizational environments.
The articles explore how control-trust dynamics play out across contexts, from hazing in workgroups and technology deployment to inter-organizational partnerships and creative collectives. They investigate when control and trust reinforce one another, when they conflict, and how they evolve over time. Emerging themes include the role of values-based trust, paradoxical dynamics in collaborations, and the effects of new monitoring technologies.
By expanding perspectives across levels of analysis, this Special Issue sheds light on how formal mechanisms and informal relationships combine to support (or undermine) effective collaboration. It offers fresh insights for leaders, managers, and scholars into designing governance systems that are both resilient and adaptive.
Read the full issue here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/14676486/2023/60/8 or browse the individual articles below.
Rethinking Control and Trust Dynamics in and between Organizations by Fabrice Lumineau, Chris Long, Sim B. Sitkin, Nicholas Argyres and Gideon Markman
Control-Trust Dynamics during Socialization: Lessons from Workgroup Hazing by Kenneth M. Sweet, Rachel E. Sturm, Mortaza Zare and Marcus A. Valenzuela
In the Riptide of Control and Trust: Emergence of Control Practices, Suspicion, and Distrust in New Technology Deployment by Pia Hurmelinna-Laukkanen, Elina Niemimaa, Anniina Rantakari and Nina Helander
Values-based Trust as a Shift Parameter for Collective Organizing: The Case of Magnum Photos by Akhil Bhardwaj and Anastasia Sergeeva
How Managers Respond to Paradoxical Control-Trust Dynamics in Interorganizational Relationships over Time: A Constitutive Approach by Jane Bjørn Vedel and Joana Geraldi
Unpacking the Duality of Control and Trust in Inter-Organizational Relationships through Action-Reaction Cycles by Anna R.S. Swärd, Ragnhild Kvålshaugen and Lena E. Bygballe
List of Reviewers for this Special Issue
