Trust between team members is important: Research has shown that teams with higher levels of trust have a propensity to be higher performers. This study built on contemporary trust theory by examining initial interpersonal trust development between a new team member and a newly formed work-team using experimental rather than correlation-based survey methods. Undergraduate students from a metropolitan Australian university participated in a vignette experiment examining the effect of teams with varying levels of Ability, Benevolence and Integrity on trust development. It was hypothesised that these antecedents of trust do not have similar effect on our Intention to Trust as is currently depicted in Mayer, Davis and Schoorman's (1995) integrative model of organisational trust. Their model is developed by hypothesising that the type and magnitude of the information we receive about a trustee moderates the relationship between our Intention to Trust and its antecedents. Initial examination of the traditional scales identified overlaps that needed clarification. This was completed by informing existing scales and the vignette manipulations with the context specific information that emerged from the thematic analysis of structured interviews. Subsequent analyses of the questionnaire data used ANOVA and Structural Equation Modelling techniques. In testing the hypotheses, Ability was found to be most salient in the development of Intention to Trust. This research contributes methodologically by developing a vignette-based experimental method that improves the reliability of existing trust scales. The study contributes theoretically by further explaining the salience of the trust antecedents and practically by identifying that the judgment and decision-making of new workteam members can be distorted by halo bias wherein they ignore the Benevolence traits of team members of a group that exhibits high levels of Ability.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/265642 |
| Date | January 2007 |
| Creators | Beatton, Douglas A. |
| Publisher | Queensland University of Technology |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | Copyright Douglas A. Beatton |
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