HENRY FARRELL
Department of Political Science
George Washington University

Does Trust Make Organizations Work Better?

Trust and Distrust in Organizations: Dilemmas and Approaches
Edited by Roderick M. Kramer and Karen S. Cook. New York: Russell Sage, 2004. 381 pp. Cloth, $39.95.

In the past several years, scholars from a variety of academic disciplines have opened a fascinating debate over the sources and consequences of trust. This discussion has produced some important insights but also some frustrations. As in many cross-disciplinary debates, differences in terminology and conceptual vocabulary sometimes lead to confusion and argument at cross-purposes. Kramer and Cook's volume is an important contribution to the ongoing project of drawing these discussions together; it canvasses a wide range of arguments and perspectives on how trust works in organizations. The debates over trust are wide ranging, presenting the organizers of a volume such as this with a trade-off between coherence and scope of coverage. On one hand, one might create a narrowly focused project, which would be highly coherent at the cost of failing to represent the diversity and richness of the current debate. On the other, one might create a broadly inclusive volume that captured the variety of argument at some cost in terms of overall coherence. The editors have clearly opted for the latter of these strategies. As they note, "Organizing such a diverse set of chapters presented something of a challenge, especially given the deliberately diverse mix of theorists and their distinctive interests and concerns" (p. 3). Those who come to this volume expecting chapters that all speak to a tightly focused question or set of questions are likely to be disappointed. But by the same token, the volume provides an impressive and comprehensive overview of existing debates on trust and how they connect to the study of organizations. Anyone who is interested in the state of the art of this debate will find this to be an invaluable guide indeed.