Understanding consumer trust and distrust in a public service ecosystem

Purpose – Despite consumer trust being a key construct within the services marketing domain, there is a lack of consensus on the conceptualisation – specifically the relationship with distrust, and variations across different actors in the services ecosystem. The purpose of this study is to explore the conceptualisations of trust and distrust across different levels of a public service ecosystem in a transformative context of energy services. Design/methodology/approach – A systematic literature review of 70 academic papers that explore trust and distrust in the energy service sector was undertaken. Findings – The results revealed two potential models of the relationship between trust and distrust in a public service ecosystem. Furthermore, the results identified that trust and distrust appear to vary for different actors in the energy service ecosystem and have different antecedent factors. Originality/value – To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to directly compare and explore the differences between trust and distrust in a public service context and identified little consensus in the conceptualisation of trust and distrust. Furthermore, this study is the first to adopt an ecosystem perspective for trust or distrust with trust resulting from interactions with individuals at all levels of the ecosystem whereas distrust was derived from structures and processes at the meso and macro-level.