Trust, Power and Public Sector Leadership: A Relational Approach provides a critical theoretical treatment of trust in the realm of public management and governance.
The public trust agenda is an antidote to rampant bureaucratic control and, in particular, the marketization and instrumentalization associated with New Public Management. The book approaches trust from a relational perspective that draws on insights from trust research, modern sociology and organization and management theory, while lending support to developments in New Public Governance. It provides a theoretical framework that distinguishes between institutional, economic, moral and relational trust and shows how a relational perspective is able to incorporate insights from the other paradigms in an inclusive approach to trust processes. Apart from providing a theoretical reading of the workings of trust in public organizations, the book addresses how trust relates to power and control along with notions of debureaucratization, post-bureaucratic organization and post-heroic leadership. It also shows how the trust agenda, in theory and practice, is related to social capital and thus efforts to strengthen social relations and collaboration in and around public organizations. Speaking of practice, the book takes its empirical point of departure in the Danish public sector. However, the aim of the book is not to promote the "High trust" Danish case as a benchmark or best practice. The aim is to theorize and help make sense of this particular experience by applying general theory to it and extracting general insights – with broader application – from its particular manifestations and outcomes.
There is a need for more elaborate theorizing about trust and power in a public sector setting, and the Danish experience is useful as a starting point for this ambition.
Author(s): Steen Vallentin
Series: Routledge Studies in Trust Research
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 156
City: London
Cover
Half Title
Series Information
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
1 Approaching Public Sector Trust
The Public Sector, Trust and COVID-19
Trust and Public Administration
Trust and Public Sector Reform
Trust, Power and Control
Two Meanings of “Relational”
The Ideal, the Real and the Elusiveness of Trust
Trust, Social Capital and the Gift
A Relational Trust Agenda
References
2 Trust Paradigms in Public Management
Trust Paradigms
Institutional Trust
Economic Trust
Moral Trust
Relational Trust
Trust Paradigms, Models of Public Governance and Hybrid Forms
A Kaleidoscope of Relational Trust
Uncertainty and Risk
Suspension of Disbelief, “The Leap”
Positive Expectations … and the Non-Expected
Trust and Distrust as Functional Equivalents
Limited Trust
Accept of Vulnerability
Sense and Sensibility
Trust as Process
References
3 Trust and Power
Trust and Power in a Relational Perspective
Trust and Control – Substitutes Or Complements?
Debureaucratization – Hierarchy and Market
Post-Bureaucracy and Critical Management Studies
Post-Heroic Leadership and Self-Management
Trust and Values
Trust, Power and Motivation
Motivation Crowding
References
4 Social Capital and the Gift Economy
Social Capital – Concept and Caveats
Social Capital and the Relational Paradigm
Three Forms of Organizational Social Capital
Bonding Social Capital
Internal and External Bridging
Linking as Vertical Coordination
Social Capital, Diversity and the Problem of Othering
The Gift Economy
Management as Gift-Giving
References
5 Relational Trust and Social Capital in Practice
Sector Enactments of Trust
Experimenting With Trust
Trust in the Municipality of Copenhagen
Trust-Based Reform of Home Care
Current and Future Perspectives of Trust Reform
References
6 Trust, Leadership and Technology: Old Conundrums and New Openings
What Is Trust?
What Is Trust-Based Leadership?
Managerial Self-Presentation
Trust and Digital Technologies
Hopes, Fears and Possible Futures
References
Index
