Arja Haapakorpi

The interrelationship between trust and power in professional work

Professional work is often constructed applying the concepts of power and trust both in public discussion and sociological studies. Power and trust are crucial relationships in social life, because they build up future. Trust opens up activities in society, because it decreases the fear of risky consequences. Power is applied to enforce or prevent activities. The interrelationship of power and trust is rarely analysed, because their quality as social relationships is constructed to be reverse: trust positive and power negative. The importance of power and trust in professional work is related to their work, which is assumed have significant influences on society. Professions are trusted to master the knowledge and skills to practice the power related to their work. Thus, power and trust seem to be interrelated in professional work. The crucial question is what is the structure in professional work, in which power and trust interacts.

The aim is to analyse the interrelationship between power and trust by researching the studies dealing with professional work. The focus question is, how this relationship is constructed in these studies. Sociology of professions covers a wide variety of research, and this analysis focuses on two kinds of researches. Power and trust are shaped in the frame of social structures – the positions, relations and networks, and they also shape the qualities or power, trust and their interaction. The studies to be analysed are chosen taking into account the fact that both autonomy and interdependency as structural qualities shape the position of professions. The first kind of research deals with approach, in which professional positions are defined to be autonomous. The second one comprises such studies, in which professional positions are legitimated in networks and by interdependency with other actors.