A crosscultural study of supervisory trust

• Published in: International journal of manpower Vol. 27; no. 8; pp. 764 - 787
• Main Authors: Costigan, Robert D., Insinga, Richard C., Jason Berman, J., Ilter, Selim S., Kranas, Grazyna, Kureshov, Vladimir A.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Emerald Group Publishing Limited 01.12.2006
• Subjects: Line managers; Organizational behaviour; Organizational culture; Trust
• ISSN: 0143-7720; 1758-6577
• DOI: 10.1108/01437720610713549

Purpose This study examines the relationship of a supervisor's affectbased trust and cognitionbased trust to a subordinate employee's selfratings of enterprising behavior, which includes creativity, risk taking, initiative, motivation, and assertiveness, and to the supervisor's and coworker's ratings of the subordinate's enterprising behavior. The extent to which the power distance and ingroup collectivism cultural variables moderate the relationship between affectbased trust and enterprising behavior is assessed. Designmethodologyapproach Survey responses of US, Turkish, Polish, and Russian supervisorsubordinatecoworker triads were collected in a number of firms. Regression results were employed to test the research hypotheses. Findings The findings of this study show that the supervisor's cognitionbased trust and affectbased trust of the employee are associated with that employee's enterprising behavior. Significant twoway interactions indicate that the relationship between affectbased trust and enterprising behavior is stronger in the three collectivist countries than in the individualist USA. The moderating effects of power distance, on the other hand, appear to be negligible. Originalityvalue The main implication of this study's results is that human relations theories, which are based on the supervisor's topdown trust of the subordinate employee, may be more effective in collectivist cultures than in individualist cultures.