Impersonal trust persists despite agency tensions and varies greatly across conditions.

Evidence

Given the inherent tensions, contradictions, and paradoxes that confound agency relationships, why the persistence of impersonal trust? To argue that principals in complex society have no choice but to trust is far too simple. Indeed, there is enormous variability in the extent to which, and the conditions under which, they exercise that choice. The task of discovering and teasing out explanations for that variability arouses the sociological imagination. — Shapiro, Susan P., The Social Control of Impersonal Trust, 146

Categorization

• XREF: Sets up the puzzle the rest of the book answers; connects to Granovetter’s embeddedness invoked two paragraphs later. — connects to: Impersonal trust emerges where principals lose direct power to regulate agents. — Shapiro, Susan P., The Social Control of Impersonal Trust, 51; Impersonal trust emerges where face-to-face control mechanisms are unavailable; Trust is domain-specific, varying by context and relationship rather than globally. (+1 more)

Related

• Impersonal trust emerges where principals lose direct power to regulate agents. (similarity 0.89)
• The very conditions that create agency also preclude personalizing trust relationships. (similarity 0.88)
• Trust is structurally vulnerable because agents can exploit principals’ ignorance and distance. (similarity 0.85)
• Impersonal trust emerges where face-to-face control mechanisms are unavailable (similarity 0.84)
• The very mechanisms that enable trust also enable its abuse. (similarity 0.84)
• Trust is structurally precarious because agents control symbolic wealth at a distance from principals. (similarity 0.84)
• Trust is a social relationship of investing responsibility in another for uncertain future return. (similarity 0.83)
• Trust can arise even when transactions are not embedded in social relations. (similarity 0.83)
• Trust control is a specialized occupation that sidelines ordinary actors (similarity 0.82)
• Uncertainty-reduction strategies induce rather than replace trust. (similarity 0.81)
• Controlling trust institutions increases dissatisfaction with their offerings. (similarity 0.81)
• Mechanisms for controlling impersonal trust themselves create new opportunities for abuse (similarity 0.81)
• Principals mitigate distrust by hoarding wealth, self-sufficiency, or acquiring expertise. (similarity 0.80)
• Social relations are sufficient but not necessary conditions for trust in economic life. (similarity 0.80)
• Personal trust forms only where a personality is socially indispensable (similarity 0.80)

Broader Connections

• Impersonal trust emerges where principals lose direct power to regulate agents. #expands (0.85) — Shapiro, Susan P., The Social Control of Impersonal Trust, 51
• The very conditions that create agency also preclude personalizing trust relationships. #expands (0.85) — Shapiro, Susan P., The Social Control of Impersonal Trust, 40
• Impersonal trust emerges where face-to-face control mechanisms are unavailable #corroborates (0.82)
• Trust is domain-specific, varying by context and relationship rather than globally. #expands (0.78)