How is trust institutionalised? Understanding collective and long-term trust orientations.

The idea that trust can be institutionalised is frequently raised in the literature, but has never been followed up with any analytical rigour, despite the insights it promises to afford us especially into dynamics of collective and long-term trust. The present contribution aims to fill this important gap by developing a conceptual framework, based on Berger & Luckmann's (1967) constructionist institutionalisation theory, which outlines how institutionalised forms of trust emerge, persist, and change over time. This perspective demonstrates how organisational and inter-organisational trust can develop the "life of its own" typical of institutions, creating collective trust orientations which may remain stable over long periods of time.