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The impact of empowering investors on trust and trustworthiness

Kiridaran Kanagaretnam, Stuart Mestelman, S.M. Khalid Nainar and Mohamed Shehata

Journal of Economic Psychology, 2012, vol. 33, issue 3, 566-577

Abstract: This paper uses a controlled laboratory environment and a two-person investment game in a multi-period setting to examine the impact of empowering investors with the right to veto the investee’s profit distribution on trust and trustworthiness. Two forms of vetoes are tested: the first is costly for the investor to implement and the second is costless. One of the key findings is that the empowerment of investors through both costless and costly vetoes significantly increases trust by over 30% in both cases. To control for a treatment sequence effect, we conducted the experiment in a reverse order. We observe a comparable loss in trust when the power to veto is removed. Further analysis of veto decisions indicates that empowering investors increases both trust and trustworthiness without an undue abuse of the power to veto and that the veto decisions are mainly driven by unfair responses, consistent with the notion that most vetoes are cast by investors whose trust has been betrayed.

Keywords: Investment; Empowerment; Veto; Trust; Trustworthiness; Reciprocity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C70 C91 D63 D81 D82 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:joepsy:v:33:y:2012:i:3:p:566-577

DOI: 10.1016/j.joep.2011.11.002

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