Many scholars have argued that context is critical to understanding trust (Rousseau et al 1998). This paper examines whether there is an effect of institutional constraints on interorganisational trust in public administration (administrational trust), and whether it differs across varying public management cultures. At present, little empirical research has taken interorganisational trust in public administration as its main object of inquiry. The paper introduces the concepts of administrational trust, institutionalised control and administrative culture, and develops a set of hypotheses regarding the question as to control relates to trust in different administrative cultures. Administrative culture can be argued to moderate this relationship by means of its differentiated capacity for the creation of institution-based trust, which is is generated through trusted institutions that depersonalise existing interpersonal distrust into the institutional regime surrounding an interaction. Administrative cultures that rely more on such institutions, can therefore be argued to produce a larger extent of institution-based trust, supporting a complementary relationship between institutional control and administrational trust, while cultures that rest more on interpersonal ties might see trust development blocked by an institutional control system. We rely on a mix of interview and quantitative data to tap into our first ideas about the potential relation between institutional control and administrational trust under different administrative cultures.
