Terra Incognita - A comparative study of Vik and Hemnes and the strategies to rebuild trust after the Terra-scandal

Abstract

This master thesis aims to answer the following research question: To what extent did Vik and Hemnes develop a strategy to rebuild trust after the Terra-scandal and what are the differences in these potential strategies of trust? To be able to answer this question, I approach it through a qualitative perspective where the descriptive case study plays an important role in uncovering relevant data. I used several written sources from both national and local media in Vik and Hemnes, as well as official municipal documents and semi-structured interviews with involved informants to help describe and understand the possible development of strategies to rebuild trust and the differences. My contribution is a classification of these strategies within a conceptual framework. In order to describe and classify these strategies I utilize the eighth propositions for trust repair by Gillespie and Dietz (2009). By connecting them into a set of concepts that helps describe the efforts for rebuilding trust in Vik and Hemnes after the Terra-scandal in 2007. The eighth strategies for rebuilding trust are classified into a wider theoretical framework, the performance perspective, the impression management perspective and the organizational perspective. Trust can be built on these three perspectives, but so should rebuilding trust. The conceptual framework aims to classify strategies for rebuilding trust within these three perspectives. The main findings of this thesis indicates that the strategies related to diagnosis, apology, context sensitivity and congruence were developed in Vik. And in Hemnes acknowledgment and readiness, diagnosis, timeliness, apology, context sensitivity and congruence was developed. In both municipalities the impression management perspective has had a clear presence in the development of the strategies, as well as the performance perspective, although with a stronger presence in Hemnes than in Vik. As for the organizational perspective there are similarities between the two municipalities, as both developed a strategy related to congruence, but not related to comprehensiveness.