"Effects of interpersonal trust, corporate sustainability and propensity to trust on impersonal trust"

Abstract

Past research acknowledges that impersonal trust emanates from employees’ perception that they have been treated fairly by their organization. The present study seeks to advance this knowledge by demonstrating the role of further factors, i.e. (i) perception that they have been treated fairly by organizational intermediaries – supervisors and colleagues; (ii) perception that any stakeholder is treated fairly by the organization; and (iii) a dispositional propensity to trust others, regardless of information on organizational fairness. The results, obtained through a questionnaire administered to a probabilistic sample of 6,000 employees in six European countries, show that (i) the variables hypothesized are all significant antecedents of impersonal trust, and (ii) the forms of interpersonal trust towards supervisors and colleagues are both relevant, but present specificities that suggest to consider them separately. The implications of the findings are discussed, as well as limitations of the study and avenues for future research.