How Monitoring Influences Trust: A Tale of Two Faces

Maurice E. Schweitzer (), Teck Ho () and Xing Zhang ()
Additional contact information
Maurice E. Schweitzer: The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104
Xing Zhang: Singapore–ETH Center, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Singapore 138602

Management Science, 2018, vol. 64, issue 1, 253-270

Abstract: Monitoring changes the behavior of those who are monitored and those who monitor others. We studied behavior under different monitoring regimes in repeated trust games. We found that trustees behaved opportunistically when they anticipated monitoring—they were compliant when they knew in advance that they would be monitored, but exploited trustors when they knew in advance that they would not be monitored. Interestingly, trustors failed to anticipate how strategically their counterparts would behave. Trustors misattributed the strategic, compliant behavior they observed as signals of trustees’ trustworthiness. As a result, trustors misplaced their trust when they were unable to monitor their counterparts. We discuss the managerial implications of our results for designing and implementing monitoring systems.

Keywords: trust; compliance; monitoring; strategic behavior (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2016.2586 (application/pdf)

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:inm:ormnsc:v:64:y:2018:i:1:p:253-270

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Management Science from INFORMS Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Asher ().