Control–Trust Dynamics in Organizations: Identifying Shared Perspectives and Charting Conceptual Fault Lines

Abstract

Our review of control–trust research reveals that although scholars have advanced our understanding of these dynamics in significant ways, many important questions remain to be answered about these issues. This article contributes to debates in this domain by distilling key findings from existing theoretical perspectives in ways that also highlight important conceptual inconsistencies that are limiting scholars' capacities to develop a consistent, cumulative knowledge base about control–trust dynamics. To help scholars course-correct and address current challenges in the literature, we identify several potential areas of convergence, present a map of the area's conceptual landscape, and propose an agenda for future research that provides scholars with suggestions about how to generate more complete and coherent pictures of relationships between control, trust, and performance.