Reasons to trust, reasons to distrust: How are interorganisatonal trust and distrust judgements embedded in the Flemish public administration?

This paper investigates the macro, meso and micro level 'reasons' that are associated with interorganisational trust problems in the Flemish administration. The paper makes use of both quantitative and qualitative data to study how the trust/distrust judgement of boundary spanners are embedded in macro, meso and micro-level characteristics of trusted and distrusted Reference Interactions in public administration. Findings indicate how interorganisational boundary spanners' trust/distrust judgements are embedded in macro- and meso-level aspects of interorganisational interactions, and that that a due understanding of interorganisational trust and distrust must therefore acknowledge that any single strain of institutional, rational, or social exchange theories can only provide an incomplete perspective on, and partial model of interorganisational trust and distrust.