Interpersonal Trust: Lewicki And Bunker's Model

In order to further understand the level of trust in an organization, Lewicki & Bunker (1996) model of interpersonal was examined in this section. Lewicki & Bunker’s model of interpersonal trust advanced the view that trust is sequentially achieved at three different levels where, once trust has been established at one level, it moves to the next level (Paliszkiewicz, 2011). According to Lewicki & Bunker (2006), these three levels of trust are calculus-based; knowledge-based; and identification-based. At the calculus-based level, parties fear punishment, but also anticipate the rewards from preserving trust; in other words, trust is based on the calculation of costs and benefits. In this stage, if the benefits are more than the costs then …show more content…
At this stage, parties know each other so well and they may anticipate the reactions of each other; thus, they can act for the one another. Arising from the illustration above, it can be observed that each stage of trust depends on one another and that the higher stage depicts an expectation that a trust relationship will continue in the future. Also, each stage triggers the next stage through action characteristically of its nature. For instance, calculus-based trust is driven by the need to gather information about the other party in order to make a realistic decision on how to act or relate with each other. This information afterwards serves as the foundation for knowledge-based trust. When knowledge based trust is eventually construct parties continuously strive to learn about each other behaviour, intention and motivation. As this learning process increases, so does the identification of one party with the other party advances. More so, when identification with each other becomes the source of relationship between two or more parties, transition from knowledge-based trust to identification-based trust has …show more content…
This essentially so because managers or superior staffs begin most vertical exchanges and the degree of trust or mistrust that is perceived in their actions could be reciprocated by the subordinates (Kiefer, 2005). More so, workplace compensation and control systems which are key determinants of trust or mistrust within departments or organization as a whole are designed by the managers. As fact, evidence abound that managers control the stream of certain types of information and the chances to disseminate or not to disseminate information in certain ways within the organization (Aryee, Budhwar & Chen, 2002; Covey, 2009). Also, the arrangements of strategy, structure, and internal mechanisms to form the overall operating logic and resource allocation and governance tools of the organization are primarily designed by managers (Whitener, Brodt & Korsgaard 1998). All of these conditions invariable influence the level of trust between or across organizational levels or