A Study On The Risk-Based View Of Trust

It is more than 100 years since the research on trust is started in 1900. After development of flexuous procedures, the importance of trust has been emphasized in numerous literatures across multiple disciplines, such as sociology, economics, psychology and so on. Although significant and growing interest in the topic, several key issues still remain unresolved. How to define trust from risk perspective? What about the relationship between trust and risk? What will occur during the course of trust risk cognition? These questions are all waiting to be answered. Therefore the paper attempts to examine trust from risk perspective, and mainly addresses the thesis from three sections. The detail is discussed below.In the first section, the concept of trust from risk decision-making perspective is defined. Considerable diversity is exhibited by current definitions of trust, which can be summarized from rational perspective and irrational perspective. Although the two have their own advantages,揵lind spot? of explanation still exists. So the paper defines trust from bounded rational perspective, as a kind of risk decision-making, which weighs the mental cost of rational trust and irrational trust. Using process tracing methods, an experiment is designed to test the influence of individual抯risk preference and complexity of the task on decision maker抯 information processing strategy. The result reveals that under complex circumstances, risk-seeking individuals use heuristics to make trust decisions, while risk- neutral and risk-hating individuals are inclined to use complete information processing strategies; Under simple circumstances, no matter what attitude they hold to risk, the individuals are inclined to use complete information processing strategies, and difference is not significant. The results support the theoretical assumption to a degree.Given that trust can be treated as a kind of risk decision-making, it will inevitably be influenced by risk cognition process. In the second section, an investigation and two experiments are manipulated. The direction of the causal relationship between risk perception and trust tendency is examined in the first experiment; the influence of risk perception, trust tendency, and accountability on individual decision makers' willingness to contribute in a give-some game is tested in the second experiment; the effect of subjects playing both roles in a trust game is checked in the third experiment. The results show that (1) individual抯risk sensitivity is domain-specific, risk perception on ethical, social and entertainment domains is an antecedent to trust; (2) low sensitivity in risk, strong tendency of trust and high accountability influence contributions positively. Those low in trust contribute up to the same level as high trustors when accountability is high rather than low; (3) individuals in social and economic interactions are likely to view the situation from their own unique perspective. Trustors focus primarily on the risk associated with trust, while trusted parties梩 hose who are in a position to reciprocate梑 ase their decisions on the level of benefits they have received.On condition that previous research is mainly about the influence of risk to trust, the third section of the paper is about the counteractive of trust to risk. An investigation and an experiment are carried out to test the influence and the reason of employees?trust in the leadership on employees?coping style when in risk events. The result demonstrates that moral trust and authoritative trust influence employees? coping style positively, and the reason lies in employees? attribution. Stability attribution has more important effects than orientations attribution.In the last section, implications for academicians and practitioners are discussed, and some suggestions for future research are proposed.