The role of the third party in trust repair process

To examine the role of third parties in trust repair processes, this study uses a policy-capturing design. The third party's tactics (persuasion, guarantee) and characteristics (relational closeness between third party and victim, power of third party) relate strongly and positively to trust repair and specifically to a victim's willingness to reconcile with a trust violator, which ultimately leads to continuance of collaboration intentions. In addition, persuasion is more effective than guarantees in this process. The effects of tactics and characteristics also interact to influence the outcomes. This article concludes with some practical implications of these findings and recommendations for future research.