You, me, us? The role of collective identity contract framing in the face of alliance disruptions

The framing of contracts has been identified as an important dimension to better understand the relationship between contracts and trust in alliances. Framing refers to the use of language and phrasing in a contract, and whereas prior research has mainly considered the regulatory focus of contractual framing, we rely on social identity theory to highlight collective identity framing as an alternative framing dimension, which is likely to influence trust perceptions and behaviors in alliances. We hypothesize that the presence of a collective identity contract frame can help to maintain trust in the setting of an alliance disruption. We also expect that the strength of this relationship is contingent on the alliance actor’s propensity to trust. In a first vignette study, we show that, after an alliance disruption, the presence of a collective identity frame triggers higher trust perceptions only when the alliance actor has a low propensity to trust. A second behavioral experiment replicates these results. Jointly, these findings provide a richer understanding of how contractual framing, in combination with actors’ personality traits, shape trust in challenging alliance settings such as disruptions.