Antecedents and outcomes of trust at different levels
Diverse disciplines have examined trust and demonstrated its positive effects on a wide range of outcomes, including employee job satisfaction and performance (Colquitt, Scott, & LePine, 2007; Dirks & Ferrin, 2002), teacher professionalism and school effectiveness (Forsyth, Adams, & Hoy, 2011), consumer purchases and brand loyalty (Geyskens, Steenkamp, & Kumar, 1998), medical treatment adherence and patient outcomes (Lee & Lin, 2009), business alliance performance (Cullen, Johnson, & Sakano, 2000), international conflict de-escalation (Axelrod, 1984), national democracy (Putnam, 1993) and economic well-being (Fukuyama, 1995). Together, the body of research underscores the critical role of trust whether in everyday life or in extraordinary times, in historical events or in the fast-changing present, in the privacy of our home or in international political arenas.
Despite this, there remains a critical gap in our knowledge of trust that has begun to gain attention only recently – that trust is an inherently multilevel phenomenon. Trust, which arises from interpersonal relationships between parties, is without exception embedded within larger circles of relationships beyond the parties involved and in the broader contexts, structures and systems. For example, trust between a trustor and a coworker may be influenced by the characteristics of the trustor and the behaviour of the coworker. However, it can also be influenced by the trustor’s relationship with other coworkers within the same unit, the trustor’s and coworker’s relationships with a common supervisor, the organizational climate of the firm, the norms of the industry and the cultural values and practices of the society. Accordingly, while trust research thus far has predominantly focused on the level of analysis in which the main construct of interest resides, research that involves multiple levels of analysis is growing.
The focus on levels of analysis and the broader context is consistent with the emphasis on contextualizing research in social sciences (McLaughlin, 1998; Rousseau & Fried, 2001). Context has been defined as ‘situational opportunities and constraints that affect the occurrence and meaning of organizational behaviour as well as functional relationships between variables’ (Johns, 2006, p. 386). Examples of a context can include relationship history, team climate and organizational structure, among others. The notion is related to the concept of situational strength (Mischel, 1977; Weick, 1996), where strong situations dictated by norms and pressures limit individual variations and responses. Increasingly, we recognize that organizations, teams and individuals are all nested in broader contexts and systems that vary in occupations (Colquitt, LePine, Zapata, & Wild, 2011), market conditions (Bacharach & Bamberger, 2004), temporal events (Lieb, 2003) and national cultures (Hofstede, 1980).
Contexts are integral to multilevel trust research because they can exert direct downward effects or moderate the lower-level relationships (Johns, 2006). Accordingly, I highlight in this review the cross-level factors influencing a trust relationship. I also examine trust as a context that affords or constrains the outcome at another level. Table 8.1 shows a summary of the review, indicating the categories of the cross-level predictors and outcomes that have been examined in the literature. Such a multilevel framework better situates our knowledge of trust in a larger, complex system that approximates reality. As a result, it ‘makes our models more accurate and our interpretation of results more robust’ (Rousseau & Fried, 2001, p. 2). Before the review, I first briefly discuss relevant levels of analysis concepts, providing trust definitions at different levels and highlighting model differences.
Table 8.1 Categories of cross-level predictors and outcomes
| Cross-level factors for individual level trust | Unit level trust for cross-level outcomes | |
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| Generalized trust and political trust | National-level economics, political systems, religion and social capital Municipality-level size and political system Community-level generalized trust and civic participation |
Individual-level anti-immigrant attitudes, outgroup trust, happiness, physical and mental health, and angel investment Firm-level tax compliance |
| Trust in coworkers | National-level cultures Organizational-level contexts and reward structure Similarity between trustor and trustee |
Individual-level helping behaviour |
| Trust in teams | Team-level diversity, processes, performance | Individual-level job satisfaction, territorial behaviour and perceptions of team member contributions |
| Trust in leaders | Organizational-level climate and structure Team-level psychological safety and judgments Type of relationship Type of followers |
Individual-level job satisfaction, perceptions of leader fairness, organizational commitment, organizational citizenship and creativity Team-level performance |
| Trust in management and organization | National-level cultures External market conditions Organizational-level control systems and human resource practices Team-level climate |
Individual-level employee commitment, and in-role and extra-role performance |
| Interfirm trust | National-level cultures, generalized trust and institutions External environment uncertainty Type of relationship Trust between boundary spanners |
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The level of analysis concerns the appropriate level for analysing a given research question, which can be at the individual, dyadic, team, organizational and national/cultural levels. Explicit consideration of the level of analysis is critical to ensure that the theory, measurement, analysis and implications are at the level appropriate to the research question and are aligned. It also avoids a fallacy of the wrong level (Galtung, 1967; Rousseau, 1985), where one incorrectly assumes that a relationship or process that occurs in one level would similarly apply at a different level. Any extrapolation to a different level needs to be empirically tested. For example, whereas the relationship between job attitudes and employee performance at the individual level is inconsistent, Ostroff (1992) found a positive relationship between the two at the organizational level. As another example, while self-efficacy and performance exhibit a positive relationship at the between-individual level, the relationship has been found to be negative in within-individual research (Lord, Diefendorff, Schmidt, & Hall, 2010).
Likewise, the definition of trust should reflect the level of analysis. Trust at the individual level refers to an individual’s psychological state of being willing to be vulnerable based on positive expectations (Mayer, Davis, & Schoorman, 1995; Rousseau, Sitkin, Burt, & Camerer, 1998). Trust at higher levels of analysis refers to trust consensus, or a shared psychological state among unit members of being willing to be vulnerable based on positive expectations (Fulmer & Gelfand, 2012). Without sufficient agreement in the levels of trust, higher-level trust does not exist and only individual-level trust should be examined.
When a research question concerns trust at one level and its antecedents and consequences at different levels, the research can take the form of a cross-level or multilevel model. While the two models are closely related and share similarities, the majority of empirical research centres on cross-level models. Cross-level models concern specifically how a construct or relationship at one level can be affected by or has an impact on another construct at a different level. An example is that the strength of the individual-level relationship between interactional justice and trust in supervisors depends on the form of the organization at the organizational level (Ambrose & Schminke, 2003). Multilevel models are more complex than cross-level models and thus less frequently examined. They refer to models in which a construct or relationship at one level is affected by or affects constructs at multiple levels of analysis (Klein, Dansereau, & Hall, 1994). An example is that individuals’ trust in leaders is influenced by both team-level and organizational-level climates (Burke, Sims, Lazzara, & Salas, 2007).
The review of the trust literature on cross-level and multilevel models proceeds first by the trust referent, including generalized and political trust, coworkers, teams, leadership, management and organization, and another organization (interfirm relationships). Each section then contains a review of cross-level predictors and cross-level outcomes. An additional section focuses on cross-level and multilevel trust during conflicts and after trust violations. Where applicable, I identify the theoretical framework for each paper. Table 8.1 shows a summary of the current state of the literature, highlighting the categories of cross-level predictors and outcomes that have been considered thus far.
A host of country and regional factors have been found to influence individuals’ generalized trust. For example, national-level GDP is positively related to generalized trust at the individual level (Hooghe, Reeskens, Stolle, & Trappers, 2009), while national-level income inequality (Borgonovi, 2012; Elgar & Aitken, 2011; Fairbrother & Martin, 2013; Freitag & Bühlmann, 2009; Hooghe et al., 2009), corruption (Freitag & Bühlmann, 2009) and religious diversity (Borgonovi, 2012) are negatively related. Regions with a protestant tradition have also been found to have higher individuals’ generalized trust, supporting social capital theory which considers social networks as a type of social good (Traunmüller, 2011). Country- and regionallevel factors likewise influence individuals’ political trust in their national parliament and local government: national-level corruption, past communism and size of municipality are related to lower political trust, whereas proportional electoral systems are related to higher political trust (Denters, 2002; Van de Meer, 2010).
Research has also considered contexts moderating the effects of individual differences on generalized and political trust. Using the World Values Survey from 31 countries, in a multilevel model, Paxton (2007) predicted based on social identity theory and found a positive relationship between citizens’ membership in associations that are connected to other associations and their generalized trust both at the individual and country levels. Further, the positive relationship between education and generalized trust is stronger in countries high on income inequality and religious diversity (Borgonovi, 2012). The relationship between individuals’ race and their political trust is moderated by systems of political representation at the city level such that cities with mayor-council systems have lower levels of trust than cities with council-manager or commission forms of government (Rahn & Rudolph, 2005).
Both generalized trust and political trust, in turn, have been related to a host of individual attitudinal outcomes. In a multilevel model, across 15 European countries, both individual level and regional level generalized trust is negatively related to individuals’ anti-immigrant attitudes (Rustenbach, 2010). Research has also examined moderation by higher-level contextual factors. Based on cognitive dissonance theory, the negative relationship between individuals’ trust in institutions such as justice systems and unions and endorsement of private ownership of business was found to be stronger in countries with a larger government sector (Jakobsen, 2010). In addition, the relationship between generalized trust and support for democracy at the individual level varies across countries depending on the existing country-level democracy (Jamal & Nooruddin, 2010).
Importantly, generalized trust has also been linked to subjective well-being and health, and the relationships are contingent upon the national or regional context. Both generalized trust at the individual and country levels are associated with happiness at the individual level (Tokuda, Fujii, & Inoguchi, 2010). Higher average generalized trust at the country level was associated with better self-rated health at the individual level (Kim, Baum, Ganz, Subramanian, & Kawachi, 2011). In rural Chinese villages, the negative relationship between mistrust in the village and mental health at the individual-level is stronger when the village-level mistrust is high. Further, the village-level trust in the village has a stronger relationship to individuals’ physical and mental health than the individual level trust in the village (Wang, Schlesinger, Wang, & Hsiao, 2009). Similarly, in the United States, Kim and Kawachi (2006) found that communitylevel generalized trust strengthens the relationship between individual-level generalized trust and self-rated health. Further, individuals with higher levels of generalized trust and civic participation enjoy better health in countries with high levels of social capital than their counter parts, but the individual-level relationship is weaker in countries with lower levels of social capital (Poortinga, 2006).
Finally, research has considered the moderating effects of country-level generalized trust on individual-level and firm-level outcomes. Examining different forms of trust, Muethel and Bond (2013) found that in societies high on dispositional and rule-based trust, employees have higher outgroup trust than those in societies high on categorization-based trust. In the area of entrepreneurship, individuals in countries high on generalized trust are more likely to act as an angel investor and invest in entrepreneurship (Ding, Au, & Chiang, 2015). Country-level trust also strengthens the relationship between perceived entrepreneurial skills and angel investment, but weakens the relationship between new business opportunities and angel investment (Ding et al., 2015). Further, the relationship between legal protections in society and entrepreneurship is weaker in emerging economies but the relationship is mitigated when the society has high generalized trust (Kim & Li, 2014). For firm outcomes, research shows that country-level general trust weakens the negative relationship between a firm’s corruption and the firm’s tax compliance (Alon & Hageman, 2013).
Research on trust in coworkers has examined cross-level influences including organizational contexts and structures, demographic and cultural differences, and network attributes. For example, reward structures have a strong influence on interpersonal trust, with cooperative reward structures increasing trust and competitive reward structures decreasing trust (Ferrin & Dirks, 2003). Higher-level contextual moderators also influence individual-level trust relationships. In contexts where high reliability is important, individuals’ trust in members is more strongly related to ability and integrity as compared to in typical contexts where individuals’ trust in members is more strongly related to benevolence and identification. Trust in the typical context is related to withdrawal, whereas trust in the high-reliability context is related to physical symptoms (Colquitt et al., 2011). Further, when the organizational context is competitive, electronic introduction of dyadic partners decreases trust more than face-to-face introduction (Hill, Bartol, Tesluk, & Langa, 2009).
Other studies have examined how demography can exert contextual influences on trust. One recent study focuses on differences in age between the trustor and trustee. Age diversity in client’s team is negatively related to client–consultant trust when the client and consultant are of similar age but positively related to client–consultant trust when the client and consultant are of different ages (Williams, 2016). Other research in this area focuses on national cultural values as a context. Doney, Cannon, and Mullen (1998) proposed that national cultures influence individuals’ trust in coworkers through the effects of norms, values and behavioural assumptions on trust-building processes. Empirical research has largely examined trust in the Chinese context. For Chinese managers, economic exchanges and ties with third parties have a positive effect on trust, while for American managers, friendship ties have a positive effect (Chua, Morris, & Ingram, 2009). When there lacks long-term interactions, the Chinese exhibit less spontaneous trust than Americans (Özer, Zheng, & Ren, 2014). Further, cultural similarity with overseas partners promotes affective trust among the Chinese (Jiang, Chua, Kotabe, & Murray, 2011).
Other studies have utilized network analysis to understand how the larger network influences trust in coworkers at the individual level. For example, similar shared ties with all other third parties in a network influence one’s trust in another (Ferrin, Dirks, & Shah, 2006). Similarly, Howorth and Moro (2006) examined the relationships between bank managers and entrepreneurs in close-knit communities in Italy and found that third-party ties influence the trust development. Drawing on social exchange and social influence theories, Wong and Boh (2010) predicted and found that other managers’ trust in a focal manager is influenced by the network attributes of the focal manager’s advocates – peers who have received social support or advice from the focal manager and who can thus convey positive information about the focal manager. They found that network attributes such as network density and non-overlapping ties exerted a positive effect on trust in the focal manager.
Research has also examined the effects of trust in coworkers at the unit level. Choi (2006) found that it exerts a direct effect on employees’ helping behaviour at the individual level and moderates the effects of perceived organizational support and perceived unit fairness on their helping behaviour at the individual level.
Theoretical work has explored factors at the team level in influencing trust in teams at the individual level. Based on social identity and social information processing theories, Wildman and colleagues (2012) proposed a theoretical framework and posited that some team processes such as backup and coordination behaviours would increase individuals’ trust in teams, while other team processes such as monitoring and conflict behaviours would decrease individuals’ trust in teams. These authors also suggest that current team performance would influence individuals’ future trust in the similar type of teams and that the individual-level relationship between generalized trust and trust in teams would be stronger when teams are in a context of high task uncertainty. Looking at team geographical diversity as a higher-level contextual moderator, in an empirical study, Joshi, Lazarova and Liao (2009) drew on social identity theory and found that the individual-level relationship between perceptions of inspirational leadership and trust in teams is stronger when the team is more geographically dispersed across different cities and countries and a high proportion of members are telecommuters.
Trust in teams at the individual level has also been examined as a mediator in cross-level relationships. Using network analysis and drawing on the similarity attraction paradigm, Chou, Wang, Wang, Huang, and Cheng (2008) found that trust in teams at the individual level mediates the relationship between shared work values at the team level and individuals’ satisfaction with the organization. Interestingly, these authors also found that being trusted by team members mediates the relationship between shared work values at the team level and individuals’ performance. At a higher level of analysis, Braun, Peus, Weisweiler, and Frey (2013) found that team trust at the team level mediates the relationship between team-level perceptions of supervisor transformational leadership and individual-level employee job satisfaction. One recent study examined the moderating effect of team-level trust in teams. Team trust reduces individual territorial behaviours for those who feel psychological ownership. However, team trust also makes coworkers judge individuals who do exhibit territorial behaviours as contributing less to the team (Brown, Crossley, & Robinson, 2014).
Theoretical and empirical research on trust in leaders has examined factors at multiple levels of analysis. Drawing on social exchange theory, Burke and colleagues (2007) posited that team psychological safety and organizational climate can both exert downward influences on individuals’ trust in their leaders. Focusing on organizational form as a contextual moderator, Ambrose and Schminke (2003) found that the relationship between interactional justice and trust in supervisors at the individual level, based on social exchange theory, is stronger with an organic organizational structure than a mechanistic organizational structure. Examining teamlevel factors, Shamir and Lapidot (2003) found that employees’ trust in leaders is influenced by their teams’ judgments and evaluations of leader trustworthiness, consistent with social information processing theory. Antecedents of trust in leaders may also differ as the relationship with the leader matures. In a new relationship between the employee and supervisor, leader ability and integrity lead to trust in the supervisor, whereas in an established relationship, in addition to leader integrity, trust in the supervisor is also high when the employee is high on generalized trust and perceives the supervisor to be high on benevolence (Frazier, Tupper, & Fainshmidt, 2016).
Cross-level and multilevel research has also examined outcomes of trust in leaders. In a multilevel model, trust in leaders has been proposed to have effects across levels including employee attitudes, team learning and organizational performance (Burke et al., 2007). After accounting for individual-level leader-member exchange (LMX), group-level trust in leaders was found to predict individual-level organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB), perceptions of leader fairness and job satisfaction (Wech, 2002). These findings are consistent with social exchange and social information processing theories. Interestingly, the effects of trust in leaders can vary in different groups of employees. While trust in the leader mediates the relationship between leader-participative leadership and task performance and organizational citizenship toward the organization for non-managerial subordinates, for managerial subordinates, empowerment mediates the relationship (Huang, Iun, Liu, & Gong, 2010).
Finally, research has also examined team-level trust in leaders as a moderator on individual-level outcomes. It has been found to strengthen the positive relationship between team learning goal orientation and individual creativity through team information exchange (Gong, Kim, Lee, & Zhu, 2013). Unit-level trust in senior management strengthens the relationship between employee perceptions of manager justice in performance appraisal and organizational commitment (Farndale & Kelliher, 2013). A recent study looked at both a team’s and the leader’s trust in one another and examined the influences of congruence in these two forms of trust. To the extent that the workgroup and leader share affective trust congruence, the group performance was higher (Carter & Mossholder, 2015).
Research on trust in management and organizations has examined contextual influences at the organizational and societal levels, focusing on HR practices, organizational systems, conditions external to the organization and national cultures. Searle (2013) identified that HR practices which aim to foster high involvement work systems that facilitate communication and employee empowerment and participation as well as work systems that aim to improve performance management processes and address employee concerns can increase trust in the organization and top management (Appelbaum, Bailey, Berg, & Kalleberg, 2001; Mayer & Davis, 1999; Searle et al., 2011). Drawing on social exchange theory, Whitener (2001) predicted and found that human resource (HR) practices related to developmental appraisals and equitable reward systems strengthen the relationship between perceived organizational support and trust in management at the individual level.
In addition to HR practices, well-implemented organizational control systems that are consistent and flexible, and that value trustworthiness increase employees’ trust in the organization (Weibel et al., 2015). Focusing on voice in particular, different voice arrangements have different effects on employees’ trust in management: direct voice has a positive effect, whereas voice through union representation has a negative effect (Holland, Cooper, Pyman, & Teicher, 2012). Looking beyond the organization, Hodson (2004) found that external market conditions, including diversity in labour force and instability of product market, reduce perceptions of organizational trustworthiness at the individual level. Outside of the organization, national cultures can exert contextual moderating influences on the effect of trust in management. Specifically, job formalization is negatively related to individuals’ trust in management, particularly in individualistic cultures (Huang & Van de Vliert, 2006).
With regard to outcomes, based on social exchange theory, individuals’ trust in the organization was predicted and found to mediate the link between group safety climate and individuals’ outcomes including safety motivation, job satisfaction and turnover intention (Kath, Magley, & Marmet, 2010). Individual-level trust in management also moderates the effect of HR practices on employee attitudes. It strengthens the relationship when HR practices are oriented to increase motivation as compared to when HR practices are oriented to increase ability or opportunity to participate (Innocenti, Pilati, & Peluso, 2011).
At the higher unit level, Farndale and Kelliher (2013) found that the unit climate of trust in management is directly related to higher employee commitment, and at the same time strengthens the relationship between perceptions of line-manager fairness in performance appraisal and commitment at the individual level. At the organizational level, Li, Bai and Xi (2012) found that collective trust in the organization mediates the effects of organizational mechanistic structure, ethical values and top management teams transformational leadership on individuals’ in-role and extra-role performance, supporting their predictions based on social exchange theory.
Across various trust referents, interfirm trust has received the most theoretical attention, with a particular focus on the relationship between interpersonal and interfirm trust. Currall and Inkpen (2002) proposed that trust in an international joint venture can be conceptualized at three levels of analysis: individual (e.g. operations managers), group (e.g. groups of managers) and organizational. Thus, boundary spanners of a firm can deal with their counterparts as individuals, a group, or with the partner firm directly. In a similar vein, Mouzas, Henneberg and Naudé (2007) suggested that both interpersonal and interorganizational trust and reliance should be considered in interfirm relationships. For example, they viewed high interpersonal trust and low interorganizational reliance as representing a personal relationship, and low interpersonal trust and high interorganizational reliance as representing an expedient relationship.
In the context of interorganizational negotiations, Jeffries and Reed (2000) proposed that interorganizational trust moderates the relationship between interpersonal trust between the negotiators and the Pareto efficiency of the negotiation solution. Specifically, when interorganizational trust is high, Pareto efficiency would be higher when interpersonal trust is low. In an empirical study, Fang, Palmatier, Scheer and Li (2008) found that interorganizational trust amplifies not only the positive effect of trust between boundary spanners on interfirm coordination, but also its negative effect on responsiveness due to routinized rigidity.
Recently, Schilke and Cook (2013) drew on institutional theory, social identity theory and process theory of trust to propose a cross-level process of interorganizational trust. The development of interorganizational trust includes four stages. Stage 1 (Initiation) begins when a focal boundary spanner develops initial trust in the partner firm based on prior interactions or reputation of the partner firm. Stage 2 (Negotiation) follows when trust between bound ary span ners of partner firms develops. Stage 3 (Formation) occurs when the focal bound ary spanner transfers the trust in the partner boundary spanner to the partner firm, and finally, in Stage 4 (Operation), the trust in the partner firm becomes shared among members in a focal firm and thus operates at the organizational level between firms.
Research has also considered higher-level factors for interorganizational trust. Institutions such as legal protection and community norms are conducive to building trust, particularly in the early stage of interfirm relationship or when the relationship needs to be built quickly (Bachmann & Inkpen, 2011). Other research explores contextual moderators in the relationship between interorganizational trust and outcomes, focusing on environmental uncertainty. In buyer and supplier relationships, when market uncertainty is high, relational trust that the buyer has in the supplier is strongly related to supplier performance (Poppo, Zhou, & Li, 2015). Further, the effect of interorganizational trust on firm performance is strengthened when external uncertainty is high (Gaur, Mukherjee, Gaur, & Schmid, 2011).
Research on interfirm trust has also examined national differences. Generalized trust of the country where a firm is located influences the firm’s perceived trustworthiness of their international joint venture partner (Ertug, Cuypers, Noorderhaven, & Bensaou, 2013). National differences also moderate the types of factors that influence interfirm trust. Dutch auto dealers decrease trust in both positive and negative inequality in their relationships with suppliers, whereas US auto dealers only decrease trust in negative inequality (Scheer, Kumar, & Steenkamp, 2003).
Limited research has examined cross-level and multilevel models of trust post-violation or during conflicts. Elangovan and Shapiro (1998) proposed that organizational culture (e.g. self-interest oriented) and organizational norms can moderate how individuals evaluate and respond to interpersonal trust betrayal. Drawing on attribution theory, Janowicz-Panjaitan and Krishnan (2009) discussed that the nature of trust violations may vary at the corporate and operating levels and their effects can spillover from one level to another. Gillespie and Dietz (2009) drew on the system and multilevel theories and proposed a multilevel model in relation to organizational failure and individual employees’ perceptions of organizational trustworthiness. Specifically, organizational implementation of interventions that constrain untrustworthy behaviour and demonstrate the organization’s ability, integrity and benevolence should improve employees’ perceptions of trustworthiness. Research on multilevel trust after violations is largely theoretical.
Empirically, recent research shows that trust repair is more difficult with groups than with individuals, but the difference decreases if violators can match their responses to the type of violations, such as apologizing for competence-based violation and denying integrity-based violation (Kim, Cooper, Dirks, & Ferrin, 2013). In the area of conflict management, an empirical study has been conducted. Currall and Judge (1995) found that a history of failed conflict management between two groups is negatively related to the mean level of interpersonal trust that the groups’ boundary spanners have in each other.
In this chapter, I review the literature on trust in cross-level and multilevel models. Together, the body of research clearly demonstrates that trust is a highly embedded construct. As can be seen in Table 8.1, research has considered many categories of cross-level predictors and outcomes across the different trust referents. Specifically, for generalized and political trust, research has linked an array of national, municipality and community factors to individual-level trust. However, as research on generalized trust has largely developed separately from research on the other referents, it would be interesting to explore whether organizational factors, such as climate and leaders, can change individuals’ generalized trust. It is worthy to note that, in addition to individual outcomes, research on national-level generalized trust has examined its impact on firm outcomes. Additional research such as on within- and between-community and team can broaden the range of outcomes for generalized and political trust.
For trust in coworkers, while research has examined national-level and organizational-level predictors, it would be worthwhile to understand the influences of team factors and leadership. For example, how do different leadership styles affect unit-level trust in coworkers? Like wise, more outcomes can be explored for unit-level trust in coworkers, such as the impact of organizational-level trust in coworkers (trust climate) on team processes and outcomes. With regard to trust in teams, research needs to move beyond a focus on team-based influences. Leadership, HR practices and organizational cultures are just a few possible predictors for individual- and team-level trust in teams.
Moving on to trust in leaders, in addition to the organizational and team cross-level factors that have been examined, a fruitful avenue for research is in national-level influences on individual- and team-level trust in leaders. For trust in management and organization, research has examined factors at the national, organizational and team levels. However, research can examine the effects of unit-level trust on outcomes beyond the individual level, such as within-team and between-team outcomes. Research on interfirm trust has examined factors at the national and dyadic levels. Again, more outcomes at different levels can be explored. For example, interfirm trust may exert cross-level influences on interteam exchanges or employee performance within a firm.
Looking more broadly across referents, research has largely been limited to examining the influences of cross-level predictors on individual-level trust and the influence of unit trust on individual-level outcomes. Consequently, we know very little about cross-level contextual influences on trust at higher-levels, such as team trust and interfirm trust. For example, it is possible that industry norms and organizational structures lead to different team trust across organizations. We also know little about cross-level effects of trust on higher-level outcomes, such as organizational trust on coordination among different units in an organization and on conflicts among team members.
The review also shows the various theoretical perspectives adopted across referent areas in predicting and explaining trust relationships and patterns. However, a small set of theories has received the majority of attention. Chief among these are social exchange theory (Blau, 1964), social information processing theory (Salancik & Pfeffer, 1978) and social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1979). By contrast, theories such as process theory of trust (Lewicki & Bunker, 1996) and system theory (Burke, 2002) have been infrequently adopted. To better predict and understand trust in cross-level and multilevel models, researchers need to more explicitly incorporate trust theories and multilevel theories in their work. Levels theories such as sense making (Weick, 1995), event cycle (Morgeson & Hofmann, 1999) and compilation (Kozlowski & Klein, 2000) should help build and expand the current multilevel research on trust.
Beyond these empirical and theoretical gaps, the field needs additional research and methodological advances to better understand the role of trust across levels. Below, I highlight theoretical implications of this review before turning attention to future research directions and methodological considerations.
The rich findings from cross-level and multilevel models of trust underscore the importance to move beyond the predominant focus on trust at a single level of analysis. Clearly, trust does not only exert effects on outcomes and is subject to factors that are at the same level of analysis. Without considering antecedents, consequences, moderators and mediators at other levels, research at a single level presents an incomplete picture of trust that risks oversimplifying relationships and even drawing erroneous conclusions. These findings also highlight the critical role that context plays in influencing trust. Trust research has been criticized to be largely decontextualized (Li, 2012). The review demonstrates that trust can involve different processes and exhibit different patterns across groups, organizations, industries, time and locations.
Due to the relatively small number of current studies, a comparison of trust relationships across levels of analysis is difficult. As cross-level and multilevel research continues to accumulate, it would be interesting to examine questions such as whether trust in leaders at the individual, team and organization levels has similar relationships with performance outcomes. Further, for trust relationships at higher levels, research so far has largely relied on theories at the individual level. An important consideration for future research is whether theories at the individual level are sufficient to examine relationships at a higher level or cross-level. From the levels perspective, theories need to be adapted at higher levels to ensure alignment of the level.
In addition to semi-isomorphism in theories and relationships, there remains an empirical question whether trust at higher levels of analysis is conceptually equivalent to trust at the individual level. Definitions of trust at higher levels so far have been based on the definition at the individual level. Future research should examine this assumption of construct quasi-isomorphism (see Tay, Woo, & Vermunt, 2014, for procedures). For example, shared trust in teams and trust climate in organizations may or may not consist of the same elements of positive expectations and willingness to be vulnerable (cf. Fulmer & Gelfand, 2012). It is possible that trust at the higher levels comprises different components than trust at the individual level.
Based on the review of the literature, I also identify a number of broader areas that require future research investigation, including using the multilevel approach to understand trust dynamics after violation, a focus on the dyadic level, and examining the emergence of unit-level trust and trust compilation. Following these, I highlight three methodological considerations, including an explication of the level of analysis and trust referent, challenges associated with studying dispersion and emergence, and drawing causal inferences.
The act of trust entails inherent risks that put the trustor in a position vulnerable to violations (Yamagishi, Cook, & Watabe, 1998). Unfortunately, violations have been found to be common occurrences rather than exceptions in organizations (Robinson & Rousseau, 1994). Workplace conflicts are likewise prevalent (Bendersky, 2003). Given this, it is alarming that limited research has examined trust during conflicts or after violations, particular across levels of analysis as reflected in this review. As with trust at a single level (Schoorman, Mayer, & Davis, 2007), the preponderance of extant cross-level and multilevel research has focused on trust development. Much more research is needed on trust during conflicts and post-violation in relation to factors at different levels within a system. Further, scholars have long acknowledged that trust is dynamic and fluctuates over time (Rousseau et al., 1998). Cross-level and multilevel research is thus also needed to examine trust changes as it forms, once it is established and when violations have occurred. To understand these temporal dynamics, levels theory and methodology (e.g. Goldstein, Healy, & Rasbash, 1994) should be incorporated.
As can be seen in the review, research has examined trust across individual, team, organizational, community and societal levels. In contrast, trust at the dyadic level has been largely overlooked. Tse and Ashkanasy (2015) highlight the dyadic level as a missing link in multilevel research. The dyadic level is particularly suitable for examining the notions of trust symmetry and asymmetry, which has only recently received attention. Research on the single level has shown the benefits of trust symmetry, including resource exchanges (Bouty, 2000) and OCB (Brower, Lester, Korsgaard, & Dineen, 2009). In interfirm relations, competitive external environments and cultural and institutional differences have been found to reduce trust symmetry (Graebner, 2009; Zaheer & Zaheer, 2006). The dyadic perspective can also be examined at the team level. De Jong and Dirks (2012) found that trust asymmetry among pairs of members in a team weakens the relationship between trust at the team level and team performance.
Additionally, future research can examine the concept of trust dispersion – the extent to which members in a unit agree or disagree on their levels of trust, and trust emergence – the dynamic process through which individual-level trust coalesces to form collective trust at a higher level (Fulmer & Ostroff, 2016). Shared trust in a unit forms when members are under similar sets of external influences, experiences and interaction patterns (cf. Kozlowski & Klein, 2000). Shared trust can be considered as a type of social context that reflects more than a mere aggregation of individual trust within a unit, but also unique unit-level processes and system pressures (cf. Ferris et al., 1998). Considering the level of consensus in trust within a unit (trust dispersion) and changes in the degree of consensus over time (trust emergence) would help clarify how collective trust comes about and functions at a higher level of analysis.
A focus on dispersion also affords additional and noteworthy ways to understand trust at the unit level. While the typical consensus model focuses on the composition form of aggre gation (Koslowski & Klein, 2000), dispersion focuses on the compilation form of aggre gation. Compilation can take various meaningful patterns. For example, the most trusting member or the least trusting member in a unit may exert the most influence on certain outcomes, rather than the average level of trust or the degree of dispersion in a unit. As another example, trust in a unit may show a pattern similar to a fault line where two subgroups can be differentiated based on their levels of trust. Other compilation patterns in a unit may follow meaningful patterns based on network linkages among members or divergent relationships with the unit leader (i.e. differentiated leader–member exchanges; see Henderson, Liden, Glibkowski, & Chaudhry, 2009 for a review). These are promising directions awaiting future investigation.
To facilitate future comparison and integration of studies across levels, researchers need to be explicit about both the level of analysis and the trust referent of their work. This review, along with the broader literature on levels (e.g. Klein et al., 1994), points to the importance to align the levels for theory, measurement, analysis, and interpretation in a study. Similarly, in theory, measurement and interpretation, studies sometimes include multiple trust referents. As highlighted in research on interfirm trust (Currall & Inkpen, 2002; Schilke & Cook, 2013), a boundary spanner’s trust in his or her counterpart, a partner firm and other firms in general can be expected to differ, and a boundary spanner’s trust in a partner firm may differ from an organization’s or the management’s trust in the same referent. Therefore, the level and referent in trust research should be identified and kept consistent in a study. Moreover, careful considerations are needed to decide between a referent shift and a direct consensus model in theory, measurement and interpretation (Chan, 1998). When trust originates from individuals (e.g. interpersonal trust or team trust in members), a direct consensus model is appropriate. When the trust construct concerns perceptions of others or a unit in general (e.g. third-party perspective and trust climate), a referent shift model should be adopted.
Although trust emergence and dispersion present interesting avenues for future research, it is not always clear how researchers can study them. In the dispersion model, the variable of interest is the extent to which unit members share their levels of trust in a referent, or the degree of agreement among members. In contrast, emergence study requires a demonstration of a change in consensus/dispersion over time. For example, as a team works and socializes together over time, trust consensus should increase and thus emergence can be observed. When there are significant changes in team membership, the level of trust consensus may decrease during the period. So far, little theoretical work has explicated the unfolding processes and patterns of emergence across time (Fulmer & Ostroff, 2016) and quantitative research remains lacking (Kozlowski & Chao, 2012). To truly examine trust emergence, longitudinal studies are needed to document changes in trust consensus. When consensus is measured only in one or two time points, researchers can examine the state of dispersion without inference to dynamic emergence.
Given the inherent challenges of conducting multilevel research, it is not surprising that extant research heavily relies on the concurrent survey method. Future research on cross-level and multilevel models of trust needs to expand the methodological repertoire to afford inferences of causality. Some researchers have already raised questions regarding causality in cross-level trust models. For example, Jamal and Nooruddin (2010) questioned whether it is individuals’ generalized trust that promotes national democracy, or existing democracy that leads to higher individual-level generalized trust. While causal inferences at the community and societal levels will be difficult to make, research at the individual, team and organizational levels should be able to discern causality by utilizing laboratory and field experiments.
In this review chapter, I focus on the recent developments in cross-level and multilevel models of trust. The body of research demonstrates that, in addition to the behaviours and characteristics of the parties that are directly involved in a trust relationship, trust is influenced by social context and broader organizational and cultural systems in which the parties are embedded. In addition, the research also shows that trust can exert impact beyond the parties involved to influence others who share overlapping social networks and ultimately the same system where the trust relationship is embedded. By considering trust in a multilevel system, we gain a more nuanced and realistic understanding of this important phenomenon and have potential to improve our theoretical precision and practical recommendations.
* This chapter is based upon research funded by the National University of Singapore Start-Up Grant to the author. The author thanks Yu Tse Heng and Jia Hui Lim for their assistance in preparation of this work.
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