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Follower trust is an essential component of effective leadership. Indeed, followers are not just passive observers, but active and often overlooked components of what makes leaders. But while trustworthiness has dominated scholarly discussions of the antecedents of trust, there is increasing consensus that we need to take a broader view. While trust motivation (i.e., the desire to be vulnerable in order to build or maintain particular relationships), has become a theme in theoretical discussions of trust, there remains a lack of empirical evidence testing these ideas. In response, we empirically test the role of trust motivation as an antecedent for trust in leaders across three experimental studies; we present two of the studies here and outline one which is planned to be completed prior to FINT 2022.

Stakeholder literature has only recently turned to analyze troublesome relationships. Based on our literature review we propose that the introduction of stakeholder distrust as “unwillingness to be vulnerable” is distinct from related constructs such as suspicion, negative reciprocity, and low trust. Furthermore, we develop a stakeholder distrust model by determining the most proximate antecedents and distrust-induced consequences. Finally, we offer first insights for further research on how stakeholder distrust as a distinct concept can enrich stakeholder analysis, lead to a new perspective on stakeholder engagement practices and enable a profound discussion of stakeholder relationship dynamics.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) algorithms are changing the work in many ways. One hitherto little-studied area is how these technologies are impacting leader-employee relationships, particularly employees’ trust relationships in their “flesh-and-blood” leaders. In this paper, we discuss how algorithms change the nature of leadership when some leadership functions become automated. As a consequence, employees will often find themselves in a “two-leader-situation” with resulting frictions, that create novel leadership focus areas. Three situations, in particular, can be trust-problematic in the eyes of followers: the triad relationship might (1) make responsibilities blur, (2) create conflicting decisions of human leaders and algorithms, and (3) make employees’ voice unheard. We argue that these situations can undermine employee perceptions of leaders' trustworthiness as followers might start to question a leaders’ ability, benevolence, and integrity if leaders do not understand these novel situations.

Stakeholder literature has only recently turned to analyzing troublesome relationships. We introduce distrust by also differentiating it from related constructs such as suspicion, negative reciprocity and conflicts. We then develop a stakeholder distrust model, whereby we differentiate the most proximate antecedents of stakeholder distrust and how such distrust manifests in distrust-induced behaviors. Following this we explore distrust dynamics, that is, how distrust between stakeholders and the focal organization emerges and develops, spreads across levels and possibly transgresses from suspicion to distrust (or from trust to distrust). Finally, we offer first insights for further research on how stakeholder distrust as a distinct concept can enrich stakeholder analysis, lead to a new perspective on stakeholder engagement practices and enable a profound discussion of stakeholder relationship dynamics.