Trust: Reality or illusion? A critical examination of Williamson

Lucien Karpik

Journal of Trust Research, 2014, vol. 4, issue 1, 22-33

Abstract: For Oliver Williamson, the concept of trust is useless (Williamson, O. E. [1993]. Calculativeness, trust, and economic organization. The Journal of Law and Economics, 36 , 453-486). Whenever a calculative approach is possible, and he believes it is for economic and social exchange in general with the exception of relations between family, friends and lovers, cooperation becomes self-sustaining because it is founded exclusively on the convergence of interests. My critical examination bears on the generality and the realism of the conditions underlying this postulate, namely the presence of a common calculative space and the existence of a shared observational world. It tends to show in particular that Williamson confuses calculation and judgement and, as a result, he fails to disqualify the use of the notion of trust for either social exchange or market relations.

Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/21515581.2014.891318 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:jtrust:v:4:y:2014:i:1:p:22-33

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/RJTR20

DOI: 10.1080/21515581.2014.891318

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Trust Research is currently edited by Peter Ping Li

More articles in Journal of Trust Research from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().