research on high-risk settings such as oil platforms, investment banking, medical surgery, aircraft piloting and nuclear power plants has related distrust to failure avoidance. when non-routine strategies are needed, distrusting persons perform better while when routine strategies are needed trusting persons perform better. this research was extended to entrepreneurial firms by gudmundsson and lechner. they argued that in entrepreneurial firms the threat of failure is ever present resembling non-routine situations in high-risk settings. they found that the firms of distrusting entrepreneurs were more likely to survive than the firms of optimistic or overconfident entrepreneurs. the reasons were that distrusting entrepreneurs would emphasize failure avoidance through sensible task selection and more analysis. kets de vries has pointed out that distrusting entrepreneurs are more alert about their external environment. he concluded that distrusting entrepreneurs are less likely to discount negative events and are more likely to engage control mechanisms. similarly, gudmundsson and lechner found that distrust leads to higher precaution and therefore increases chances of entrepreneurial firm survival.