Journal of Educational Administration 36,4 334 Trust in schools: a conceptual and empirical analysis Megan Tschannen-Moran The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA, and Wayne Hoy The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA The philosopher Annette Baier (1985) observes that trust is so ubiquitous we hardly notice it. “Most of us notice … trust most easily after its sudden demise or severe injury. We inhabit a climate of trust as we inhabit an atmosphere and notice it as we notice air, only when it becomes scarce or polluted” (p. 234). If this is the case, then the quality and quantity of trust within organizations and society is apparently on the decline, because trust has become a subject of study in sociology (Coleman, 1990), economics (Fukuyama, 1995), and organizational science (Gambetta, 1988; Kramer and Tyler, 1996; Shaw, 1997). Increasingly, trust is seen as a vital element in well functioning organizations. Trust is necessary for the effective co-operation and communication which are the bases for productive relationships (Baier, 1985). It is the “mortar that binds leader to follower”, and forms the basis for leaders’ legitimacy (Nanus, 1989, p. 101). Trust has been described as “a remarkably efficient lubricant” that reduces the complexities of organizational life and facilitates transactions far more quickly and economically than other means of managing (Powell, 1990). Relationships within organizations tend to be ongoing, in that people expect to continue to relate to the same network of people over time. When this is the case, there is incentive to behave in ways that are trustworthy, to develop a reputation for trustworthiness, and to reap the benefits of trusting relationships. Engendering distrust can be costly. As trust declines the costs of doing business increase, because people must engage in self-protective actions and be “continually making provisions for the possibility of opportunistic behavior” on the part of others (Limerick and Cunnington, 1993, pp. 95-6). In the absence of trust “people are increasingly unwilling to take risks, demand greater protections against the possibility of betrayal, and increasingly insist on costly sanctioning mechanisms to defend their interests” (Tyler and Kramer, 1996, pp. 3-4). As a result, the social network of relationships within an organization can exert both formal and informal control that encourages people to act in a trustworthy manner. On the other hand, people’s propensity for gossip, and the speed with which news of betrayal can spread throughout the organizational grapevine, can also make trust harder to establish. As life has gotten more complex, as changing economic realities and changing expectations in society have made life less predictable, and as new Journal of Educational A dministration, Vol. 36 No. 4, 1998, pp. 334-352, © MCB University Press, 0957-8234 Received July 1997 Accepted September 1997