Attributional sense-making of distrust in professional service firms : working in a coopetitive paradox

Abstract

Distrust is an inevitable yet often overlooked feature of relationships in professional service firms (PSFs), where simultaneous demands to collaborate and compete produce a coopetitive paradox shaping everyday organizational life. Drawing on 50 in-depth qualitative interviews using the critical incident technique, we examine how professionals attribute meaning to the development of distrust in their working relationships. The analysis identifies three recurring loci—readings of character and conduct (internal), signals from structures, processes, and cultures (external), and interactional cues in day-to-day exchanges (relational)—which often braid together into compound explanations for distrust that travel and endure. In high pressure, identity-sensitive PSFs, coopetition heightens this braiding, making small ambiguities easier to read as self-interest and harder to reverse. The study clarifies how distrust functions as an active, socially embedded process of meaning-making and why it proves so durable in coopetitive settings.

PRACTIONER POINTS • Distrust often stems from how employees interpret colleagues' personal traits and motives, with perceived insecurity, self-interest, and ethical lapses driving negative attributions. • Competitive and ambiguous organizational environments in PSFs can amplify distrust, as structural and cultural pressures encourage self-protective behaviours. • Communication breakdowns, inconsistent information flows, and intuitive judgements about the intentions of colleagues can entrench distrust in working relationships. • Addressing distrust requires interventions at both relational and structural levels—balancing performance demands with transparency, collaboration, and consistent policy adherence. • Understanding that conflict is a structural feature of work relations, rather than being deviant or abnormal, should be the starting point for practitioners in understanding causes of distrust.