Trustworthiness includes at least two dimensions: one dimension captures the authority’s benevolence; the other captures authority’s competence. This qualitative study explores the representation of the two dimensions of authority trustworthiness: competence and benevolence. We collected free-associations about what lecturers’ competence and benevolence actually mean for Italian psychology students (n = 125). The data corpus was content-analyzed. Text units were categorized according to meaning using both a bottom-up strategy, with some categories stemming from the data (inductive reasoning), and a top-down strategy, with some categories following from the analysis of the relevant literature (deductive reasoning). Qualitative content analysis showed that these two dimensions overlapped. Students listed theoretically-defined competence characteristics as indications of both benevolence and competence. The same applied to benevolence. Overall, associations were grouped into two main dimensions: (1) the “can-do” dimension, describing a lecturer’s competence and social skill; (2) the “will-do” dimension, describing a lecturer’s good intentions, integrity, and personal motivation. In conclusion, the two conceptually distinct dimensions of trust are indistinguishable in the students’ words. These preliminary results are in line with scholars debating the multifactorial or mono-factorial nature of trust.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide an analysis of how an airport’s business model (BM) has been innovated. In particular, it considers a BM innovation owing to an exogenous driver, i.e. a change in the legislative environment.Design/methodology/approach: The paper presents an in-depth case study. It analyses the case of an Italian regional airport that has been renewed by changes in the National Plan of Transport.Findings: The paper extends previous research on BM and air transport industry in two ways. First, the authors contribute to Gillen’s (2011) framework, via introducing a new kind of ownership/governance structure, that of long-term concession, characterized by the concession of the comprehensive management to a private company for 30 years. Second, the authors look at how a BM has been implemented and used as a manipulating device over the two phases of the airport development, namely, incubation and generation.Originality/value: The paper provides an in-depth case study on an airport BM innovation.

Understanding what students mean by lecturer competence can be crucial in order to recognise indicators with which to assess these competences, improve the quality of university teaching and support lecturers in undertaking their role appropriately. This qualitative pilot study aimed to explore the meaning of competence in a convenience sample of Italian undergraduate psychology students (N = 122). We collected free-associations about what “lecturer competence” actually means for the students. The data corpus underwent a lexical Correspondence Analysis (CA) using the ASPAR procedure of SPAD-T. Two factors were extracted: “socio-emotional dimension” and “task specialist.” Students associated the competent lecturer with those who was involved with the achievement of the task goals, on the one hand or those who was engaged in the group’s maintenance, on the other. Furthermore, Cluster Analysis identified four clusters: (1) the captivating lecturer; (2) the lecturer oriented to both task and socio-emotional aspects; (3) the rigorous lecturer; and (4) the benevolent lecturer. The preliminary results of this pilot study showed an articulated and multi-dimensional representation of the meanings of lecturer competence from the students’ point of view and lay the foundations for a broader quantitative study on the conceptions concerning lecturer competence.

Trust is a fundamental element of educational success. However, compared to what we know about teachers’ perceptions of trust, relatively less is known about students’ perceptions of trust. This paper describes two experimental investigations that tested the effects of authority competence and benevolence on students’ perceptions of trust and their engagement. The investigations also explored whether university identification moderated the influence of authority competence and benevolence on assessments of authority trustworthiness and university engagement. As part of an online experiment administered in the Fall 2010 and the Spring 2011 academic terms, Italian (n = 211; Study 1) and U.S. (n = 226; Study 2) undergraduates were primed to identity or not identify with their university before they read one of four scenarios describing a professor’s behavior (i.e., competent and benevolent; competent but uncaring; incompetent but benevolent; incompetent and uncaring). Results showed that students from both Italy and the United States viewed a competent and caring professor as most trustworthy and an incompetent and uncaring professor as least trustworthy. Furthermore, in both countries, students trusted an incompetent and caring professor more compared to a competent and uncaring professor. University identification did not influence trustworthiness.

The study develops research on justice within the instructional context, examining the relationships between perceptions of justice and psychological engagement in the university setting. Two studies were run: 1) a pilot study aimed at validating the Group Engagement Model (Tyler & Blader, 2003) constructs within the university context and at constructing a questionnaire; 2) a study exploring the robustness of the hypotheses of the Group Engagement Model in the university setting. The results provide useful insights for the management of university level educational contexts to promote a better involvement of students in the attainment of high academic performance and institutional commitment.