Paper Number
ECIS2026-2547
Paper Type
CRP
Abstract
Trust violations in sociotechnical systems are becoming increasingly visible as AI systems take on advisory and decision-making roles in everyday life. When these systems fail, users must interpret what went wrong and decide whether to continue relying on them. Yet IS research has largely focused on trust formation, leaving the processes through which trust is broken, and potentially repaired, undertheorized. Meanwhile, adjacent fields have produced fragmented insights into trust violations and the mechanisms used to repair them. This paper presents a systematic literature synthesis of 62 studies to understand how trust violations and repair are conceptualized when technology plays a meaningful role. We identify four core stages that structure trust breakdown and recovery: the violation incident, the trustor sensemaking, the violator reaction, and the recalibrated trust outcome. We consolidate these insights into a process-oriented framework and guiding questions, outlining implications for human-AI collaboration and future IS research.
Recommended Citation
Meywirth, Sophia; Janson, Andreas; and Söllner, Matthias, "When Trust Breaks: A Framework For Analyzing and Understanding Trust Violation and Repair In Sociotechnical Systems" (2026). ECIS 2026 Proceedings. 19.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/ecis2026/litrev/litrev/19
When Trust Breaks: A Framework For Analyzing and Understanding Trust Violation and Repair In Sociotechnical Systems
Trust violations in sociotechnical systems are becoming increasingly visible as AI systems take on advisory and decision-making roles in everyday life. When these systems fail, users must interpret what went wrong and decide whether to continue relying on them. Yet IS research has largely focused on trust formation, leaving the processes through which trust is broken, and potentially repaired, undertheorized. Meanwhile, adjacent fields have produced fragmented insights into trust violations and the mechanisms used to repair them. This paper presents a systematic literature synthesis of 62 studies to understand how trust violations and repair are conceptualized when technology plays a meaningful role. We identify four core stages that structure trust breakdown and recovery: the violation incident, the trustor sensemaking, the violator reaction, and the recalibrated trust outcome. We consolidate these insights into a process-oriented framework and guiding questions, outlining implications for human-AI collaboration and future IS research.
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