IN DIGITALIZATION WE TRUST ? : An exploration of the impact of digitalization on the trustworthiness of the leader in Dutch start-ups from the perspective of managers and employees

Sammanfattning: This thesis examines what impact digitalization can have on the trustworthiness of the leader through the lens of managers and employees in Dutch start-ups. The study explores the intersection set of trust, leadership and digitalization. As there was no prior research on the research issue at hand, a model that incorporated a process of trust and its interaction with digitalization has been constructed by the authors. The model relied on previous research on models of the trust process and characteristics of digitalization in the light of leadership. First a theoretical framework is built through a literature survey. A qualitative inquiry through interviews was carried out in order to be able to analyze the trustworthiness of the leader. The objective of the authors during the research was to document how leaders and followers perceived a trustee (leader) in a trust process with digitalization involved. The analysis revealed that even though digitalization has pervaded our lives; its impact on the trustworthiness of the leader has remained limited so far. Empirical data from this research indicated that the impact of digitalization on the three attributes of trustworthiness of the trustee was the strongest: objectives and intentions, competence and integrity. There were also digitalization related implications that could be drawn from the accounts of the interviewees. Thesis findings contribute to a better understanding of the role of the leader in a trust process in digitalized organizational environments and encourage further research in the field of trust especially when digital technologies have become so pervasive in the work life.