Although institutions comprise central components of organizational and managerial life and powerfully influence how individuals think, feel and act towards one another in society, management and organizational scholars continue to wrestle with understanding core institutional trust dynamics. Our cross-disciplinary analysis of the institutional trust literature advances the institutional trust literature in two ways. First, our review highlights the important role that institutional logics play in institutional trust formation. Second, we identify four cognitive frames that stakeholders use to evaluate the trustworthiness of institutions. Third, we classify three categories of mechanisms through which institutions engender trust. Our Discussion highlights how the perspectives outlined here can be used to refine and extend research on how institutional trust is impacted by contextual forces, trustor demographics, multi-level influences and conflicting institutional logics.
