Trust is among the most critical factors in buyer-supplier relationships. In an effort to understand the origins of trust, power has become the focus of a burgeoning body of literature. However, research on the association between power and trust has been plagued by inconsistencies in terms of whose power and trust are being examined, which has led to confusion and hindered cumulative progress. We address this issue by disentangling the effect of the focal organization (actor effect) from the effect specific to its partner (partner effect) and accounting for both simultaneously. We further theorize and show that the partner's level of self-promotion communication about his or her own achievements and credentials moderates both actor and partner effects, thus adding knowledge about a contingency that accounts for a considerable degree of variation in the linkage between power and trust. Using multi-informant, dyadic survey data paired with archival information scraped from firms' webpages, we find that (i) actors low (vs. high) in power tend to place more trust (ii) while simultaneously eliciting higher levels of trust from their partners; however, (iii) these effects differ markedly depending on the partner's level of self-promotion communication. Our study offers a novel, integrative perspective on power and trust, and we elaborate on its important implications for understanding buyer-supplier relationships.
Trust represents a key social mechanism facilitating collaboration in interorganizational relationships. Yet, the concept of interorganizational trust is still surrounded by substantial ambiguity, especially as it pertains to the levels of analysis at which it is located. Some scholars maintain that trust is an inherently individual-level phenomenon, whereas others insist that organizations constitute the central sources and referents of trust in interorganizational relationships. Our article addresses this controversy, aiming to reduce conceptual ambiguity and foster cumulative progress. Using a micro-sociological approach, we advance knowledge of the meaning and context-specific relevance of individual- vs. organizational-level trust. Specifically, we apply the notion of organizational actorhood to both the trustor and the trustee in an interorganizational relationship. We then build on micro-institutional and entitativity theory to offer a model of the antecedents of organizational actorhood that identifies a set of contextual conditions explaining the degree to which an organization rather than individuals within it constitutes the focal origin and target of trust. The contingent account we propose here helps bridge disparate traditions of scholarship on interorganizational trust by highlighting that trust can, but need not always, reside to a substantial extent at a supraindividual level of analysis.
先前关于角色一致性理论的文献主要围绕基于人口统计学的期望展开。此文献多聚焦与不同角色的规范性期望不匹配而导致的角色不一致性。在本研究中，作者不再传统地关注角色之间的不一致性，而是探索了另一种的角色不一致性来源，即基于职能期望的内部角色不一致性是如何被语言表达所触发的。通过对2003年至2018年中的7649笔合同债务以及公司电话会议记录的分析， 作者发现当财务总监（CFO）的语言表达与针对其职能期望不一致时，银行会采用更多的债务合同契约条款。作者认为这是因为CFO的职能角色不协调会令银行感知到更多的风险。此外，通过调查相应公司首席执行官（CEO）语言表达和媒体舆情的调节效应，我们展示了社会背景和对公司的舆情是如何影响这种负面的不一致性效应。我们从理论层面讨论了角色不一致性来源和合同设计前因之前的关系，为未来的相关研究提供参考。
Interorganizational projects often suffer disruptions that require participating organizations to adapt in order to restore project operations. We study the role of communication style in facilitating adaptation to such disruptions. Whereas the literature on interorganizational communication has emphasized communication mode and frequency, we study the content and features of written communication in seven U.K. construction projects. Communication style mattered for adaptation quality in these projects, and we found that several properties of communication style were particularly important for adaptation: cost and information orientation, as well as informality, precision and authenticity. Moreover, managerial slack and organizational reputation were important precursors of communication style. These results provide novel insights into the role of communication style in adaptation to interorganizational project disruptions. We discuss the implications of these insights for research on interorganizational projects in operations and supply chain management.
数年前，卢米诺教授曾以访问学人的身份来访港大经管学院。他非常欣赏经管学院高质素的研究工作，亦对港大学生所展示出的努力，留下深刻的印象。卢米诺教授笑言十分期待他的教学工作，希望与学生们加强知识交流。