The Human Microfoundations of Digital Trust in Open Banking: A Constructivist Grounded Theory Study of Strategic HRM Routines

Diane Natalin Datuallo; David Paul Elia Saerang; Djurwati Soepeno; Rudy Steven Wenas

doi:10.63922/ijebir.v5i04.4572

Diane Natalin Datuallo Program Doctor Management Science, Sam Ratulangi University, Indonesia
David Paul Elia Saerang Faculty of Economics and Business, Sam Ratulangi University, Indonesia
Djurwati Soepeno Faculty of Economics and Business, Sam Ratulangi University, Indonesia
Rudy Steven Wenas Faculty of Economics and Business, Sam Ratulangi University, Indonesia

DOI: https://doi.org/10.63922/ijebir.v5i04.4572

Keywords: open banking, digital trust, strategic HRM, human microfoundations, constructivist grounded theory, cybersecurity culture, financial ecosystems

Abstract

Open banking intensifies the dependence of financial service ecosystems on customer-permissioned data sharing, application programming interfaces, third-party partnerships, and visible organizational trustworthiness. Policy and technical literature usually treats this problem through regulation, interoperability, consent architecture, and security standards. This article shifts attention to the human microfoundations through which digital trust becomes actionable inside organizations. Drawing on Constructivist Grounded Theory in the Charmaz tradition, the study analyzes two rounds of qualitative interviews with 16 organizational actors involved in open banking and open-banking-adjacent digital banking work across HR, digital banking/fintech operation, compliance/risk, IT governance/cybersecurity, and customer experience/partnership functions. The second round used grand tour questions and critical incident technique to probe contradictions, negative cases, shadow routines, and trust breakdown events. The analysis develops a substantive grounded model in which digital trust emerges through contested strategic HRM routines rather than through formal policy or technical design alone. Four interlocking processes explain this formation: translating regulatory abstraction into situated training and communication routines; disciplining shadow routines that bypass formal controls; orchestrating cross-functional crisis work across organizational and ecosystem boundaries; and converting complaints, audits, and incidents into trust repair. The study contributes to open banking research by theorizing digital trust as a fragile organizational accomplishment, to strategic HRM by showing how HRM routines operate as behavioural trust infrastructure, and to microfoundations research by identifying the individual, interactional, and structural mechanisms through which ecosystem trust is built, damaged, and repaired.

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