We examine the relationship between trust and control in four organizations implementing Lean Production in Sweden. Research on trust has conflicting views on the trust-control relationship, which are not resolved. Prior empirical studies show either that the relationship between trust and control is substitutive, or that it is complementary (Kalkman and Waard, 2016). Our results show that trust can be either a substitute or a complement depending on the source and incidence of control, which we identify as moderators of the trust-control relationship.
We find in two of our sites that control consists of workers and managers jointly developing and monitoring the work process itself. In these two companies, the source of control is jointly the workers and managers, and the control incidence is the work task. We observed a significant reduction in use of document-based asset control systems to control people and an increased use of personal communication to control work tasks instead. In this situation, Trust is a complement to Control because it mobilizes workers to contribute to the control process.
In the other two companies, even though pursuing LP, the managers developed the control indicators in traditional ways and thus the control source was the manager, and the control incidence was the workers or the machines. The control systems in these two companies retained use of a comprehensive document-based asset control system with numerous KPIs, mainly financial. In this situation, Control substitutes for Trust because the KPIs are selected by management because they reflect management goals and to not require workers to understand management goals, but just to accomplish the KPI.
Additionally we find that the concept of trust itself, becomes a matter for reflection by both managers and workers, in both sets of groups, as they navigate new production methods.
This result extends prior research by revealing that there are missing variables (control source and control incidence) which moderate the relationship between trust and control, and contribute to the contradictory results in the literature.
2017.
7th Global Innovation & Knowledge Academy conference, Lisbon, Portugal, June 28-30, 2017