TY - JOUR
T1 - Secrets, Trust, and Transparency
T2 - Navigating between Influence and Accountability as Trusted Intermediary
AU - Frederiksen, Morten
AU - Hansen, Uffe Kjærgaard
PY - 2022
Y1 - 2022
N2 - Secrecy is usually considered destructive to trust. However, people are often involved in conflicting social commitments in which transparency to one trustor may violate the trust of others. Georg Simmel suggests that secrecy can serve important social purposes; consequently, strategically balancing transparency and secrecy can be conducive to social cooperation and building intersubjective trust. This is particularly the case for trusted intermediaries tasked with building trust in multiple conflicting relations. In this study, we investigate how shop stewards actively navigate the transparency–secrecy nexus as trusted intermediaries to build trust and gain maximal influence over management decisions. The study is based on qualitative interviews with 29 shop stewards within the Danish care sector. Shop stewards depend on co-worker trust and transparency, whereas their influence on management requires secrecy and trust, which makes shop stewards vulnerable to criticism and mistrust from their co-workers. This study shows that transparency and secrecy are important trust work tools for creating and maintaining trust, processes that require efficient compartmentalisation of issues, roles, and contextual meaning in separate formal and informal spaces of collaboration with management to avoid co-worker suspicion or conflict with management.
AB - Secrecy is usually considered destructive to trust. However, people are often involved in conflicting social commitments in which transparency to one trustor may violate the trust of others. Georg Simmel suggests that secrecy can serve important social purposes; consequently, strategically balancing transparency and secrecy can be conducive to social cooperation and building intersubjective trust. This is particularly the case for trusted intermediaries tasked with building trust in multiple conflicting relations. In this study, we investigate how shop stewards actively navigate the transparency–secrecy nexus as trusted intermediaries to build trust and gain maximal influence over management decisions. The study is based on qualitative interviews with 29 shop stewards within the Danish care sector. Shop stewards depend on co-worker trust and transparency, whereas their influence on management requires secrecy and trust, which makes shop stewards vulnerable to criticism and mistrust from their co-workers. This study shows that transparency and secrecy are important trust work tools for creating and maintaining trust, processes that require efficient compartmentalisation of issues, roles, and contextual meaning in separate formal and informal spaces of collaboration with management to avoid co-worker suspicion or conflict with management.
KW - industrial relations
KW - organisation
KW - secrets and secrecy
KW - shop steward
KW - transparency
KW - Trust
KW - trust intermediaries
KW - trust work
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85138800908&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/21515581.2022.2121283
DO - 10.1080/21515581.2022.2121283
M3 - Journal article
SN - 2151-5581
VL - 12
SP - 99
EP - 124
JO - Journal of Trust Research
JF - Journal of Trust Research
IS - 2
ER -