Determinants of interpersonal trust in workgroup relationships.

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This study explores the development of trust over time between peer coworkers in workplace relationships. It attempts to identify the factors, or determinants, that cause a coworker to trust (or to not trust) another coworker at the beginning of a work relationship and then after the coworkers have had an opportunity to interact with each other. This research draws on social-psychological research on trust and literature on categorization theory, social identity theory, and theories of social contact to develop the hypotheses. These literatures suggest that racial and gender similarity and work experience seniority will have a positive impact on trust evaluations both at the beginning of a work relationship and after coworkers have had an opportunity to interact with each other. They also suggest that social contact and perceptions of ability and value orientation will lessen this effect over time as well as have their own positive impact on trust.
A longitudinal survey of MBA project team members was conducted to test the hypotheses from this model. Trust was operationalized using three different components: affect-based trust, cognition-based trust, and intentions to engage in trusting behavior, but only the first two were found to be stable in the sample. The results suggested that the only demographic similarity/seniority determinant of trust was racial/ethnic similarity for initial evaluations of affect-based trust. Over time, social contact, perceptions of ability, and perceptions of value orientation were found to have a positive effect on evaluations of trust. However, these effects did not impact affect-based trust and cognition-based trust equally. Further research was suggested to identify other determinants of trust and their impact on trust over time. Theoretical and managerial implications of these results were discussed.