Kim, Ferrin, Cooper, Dirks 2004 (JAP) — competence violations repair via apology; integrity violations repair via denial; opposite mechanisms

Claim: Kim, Ferrin, Cooper, and Dirks (2004) ran two experiments mapping trust-repair strategy onto violation type. The finding is asymmetric and counterintuitive:

• Competence-based violations: apology that takes responsibility outperforms denial. Negative competence information is not highly diagnostic — being competent doesn't preclude occasional mistakes — so acknowledging the mistake doesn't permanently mark the actor as incompetent.
• Integrity-based violations: denial outperforms apology. Negative integrity information is highly diagnostic — honest people don't lie even occasionally — so any acknowledgment is treated as decisive.

Source: Kim, P. H., Ferrin, D. L., Cooper, C. D., & Dirks, K. T. (2004). "Removing the shadow of suspicion: The effects of apology vs. denial for repairing competence- vs. integrity-based trust violations." Journal of Applied Psychology 89(1): 104–118. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14769123/

Confidence: Verified.

For Candid — diagnosing previous-vendor failures: When a GC reports a previous vendor experience, the diagnostic question is not "how bad was it?" but "was the failure framed as competence or integrity?"

• Competence-framed ("they didn't know what they were doing") → repairable through Candid's demonstrated competence. Apology-shaped acknowledgment of the previous vendor's mistake is congruent and trust-building.
• Integrity-framed ("they took my money and disappeared," "they lied about timelines") → not repairable through competence demonstration alone. Requires structural commitments (escrow, milestone payments, references the GC can call directly) that defuse rather than answer the integrity question. No amount of "look at our work" will substitute.

Operationalized as: [[rule-diagnose-prior-vendor-failure-as-competence-or-integrity]].