Impersonal trust arises when social-control measures derived from social ties and direct contact between principal and agent are unavailable, when faceless and readily interchangeable individual or organizational agents exercise considerable delegated power and privilege on behalf of principals who can neither specify, scrutinize, evaluate, nor constrain their performance.

DEFINE: Defines impersonal trust as a specific form of trust that arises under particular structural conditions—absent direct social ties and oversight capacity.

Shapiro, Susan P., The Social Control of Imper…, loc. 51