Building trust in public sector networks: The role of rhetoric and persuasion

This study investigates how rhetoric is used to generate trust in public sector inter-organisational networks. Drawing on evidence from a Local Safeguarding Children Board in England, where formal control systems were recognised to be insufficient to deal with the uncertainty inherent in the particular policy area, we explore how trustworthiness is negotiated amongst network partners through network leaders’ use of persuasive rhetoric. The main contribution that we bring to the existing literature is providing a description of the processes through which trust is generated in a public sector multi-partner setting. Our findings suggest that these are established within a feedforward control framework within the given network setting.