Promises and lies Restoring violated strongtruststrong.pdfVIP

Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 101 (2006) 1–19 /locate/obhdp Promises and lies: Restoring violated trust Maurice E. Schweitzer a,*, John C. Hershey b, Eric T. Bradlow c a Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, 566 JMHH, OPIM, 3730 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6340, USA b Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, 568 JMHH, OPIM, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA c Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, 761 JMHH, Marketing and Statistics, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA Received 3 August 2004 Available online 28 July 2006 Abstract Trust is critical for organizations, effective management, and efficient negotiations, yet trust violations are common. Prior work has often assumed trust to be fragile—easily broken and difficult to repair. We investigate this proposition in a laboratory study and find that trust harmed by untrustworthy behavior can be effectively restored when individuals observe a consistent series of trust- worthy actions. Trust harmed by the same untrustworthy actions and deception, however, never fully recovers—even when deceived participants receive a promise, an apology, and observe a consistent series of trustworthy actions. We also find that a promise to change behavior can significantly speed the trust recovery process, but prior deception harms the effectiveness of a promise in accel- erating trust recovery. 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Keywords: Deception; Negotiation; Trust; Trust repair Trust is essential for organizations (Donaldson, 2001; ship damage (e.g., Slovic, 1993), little work has exam- L