Norm violations and informal control in organizations: a relational signalling perspective

Taking an interdisciplinary approach, this volume focuses on the trust processes between people within organizations, with an emphasis on empirical studies. Rational foundations and psychological motivations for trust are taken into account through conceptual and empirical chapters. The authors begin by summarizing a number of key elements from the literature including how trust develops in time, and how its development is affected by social-psychological phenomena. This includes the notion of ‘framing': the interpretive context in which actions are perceived and evaluated. A conceptual framework is then used to analyse trust and power in the internal relationships of the organization. The contributors take up this issue in an evolutionary analysis of competition between trust and cheating.