La influencia de la confianza en la gestión empresarial

Abstract

This dissertation is structured into five different chapters following a common thread: trust. After this introduction to the research topic, chapter two presents the first research paper, where we analyze how trust in stakeholders can help fostering the integration of sustainability into management education. Chapter three contains the second research paper, in which we address the influence of the initial level of knowledge between a trustor and a trustee on future trust, and the relationship between a trustor's experiential knowledge and future types of trusting outcomes. The third paper is in chapter four, in which we investigate trust transfers with a dynamic approach and the influence of trustors' learning on future transfers of trust. Finally, chapter five summarizes the main conclusions, implications, limitations, and future research agenda. After the introduction, in the second chapter we describe the first research paper, entitled Environmental progresses when financial implications are not the aim: The importance of trust in stakeholders on deciding the integration of sustainability into management education. Prior literature has emphasized the positive relationship between meeting stakeholders' environmental interests and a firm's financial performance. However, the influence of stakeholders on the environmental progress in organizations where the people in charge of taking environmental decisions do not perceive financial issues as the main aim of the organization remains still unexplored. In this paper, we study how trust in stakeholders's ability and benevolence may influence the integration of sustainability-related topics in university management education. The third chapter presents the second research paper: The influence of the initial and the experiential knowledge on trusting outcomes. Previous studies have mainly relied on the study of the trusting behavior displayed by agents. Nonetheless, trusting outcomes arising from trust relationships have received less attention, with the exception of betrayal, which was investigated in several prior papers. In this third chapter we analyze the influence of the level of initial knowledge between a trustor and a trustee on future trust between them, as well as the influence of the experiential knowledge accumulated by a trustor from past interactions with a trustee on the typology of trusting outcomes emerging in future interactions between them. We distinguish three different trusting outcomes: betrayal, reciprocity, and reward. Chapter four contains the third research paper entitled The dynamic nature of trust transfer and the influence of learning. In this paper we address a topic which has received increasing attention in the literature about trust during the last years: trust transfer. A trust transfer takes place when a trustor trusts an unknown trustee, based on the positive trusting history of this trustee with a third-party, who also holds a positive trusting history with the trustor. Prior literature has analyzed trust transfer in online environments focusing on the achievement of commercial goals, and assuming asymmetry between both parties' (i.e. trustor and trustee) behavior. In chapter four, we present a new perspective for investigating trust transfers with a dynamic approach and we address the influence of trustors' learning on future transfers of trust. Moreover, we build two indexes for the measurement of trust transfer and trust transfer reciprocation, which contribute to provide comparable measures across disciplines. We argue that the reciprocations obtained by a trustor from past trust transfers with a trustee influence future transfers of trust between them. Additionally, the learning collected by the trustor moderates the relationship between past trust transfer reciprocations and future trust transfers. Finally, in chapter five we summarize the main conclusions from the previous chapters and several implications for academics, managers, and regulators. Additionally, we also enumerate the limitations encountered and propose several lines for future research.