National context and individual employees’ trust of the out-group: The role of societal trust

Abstract

Out-group trust is a crucial driver of international business performance. However, employees from different countries vary in their levels of out-group trust. The aim of this study is therefore to capture national forces driving out-group trust. Based on Kramer's theorizing on the multiple bases of trust, we argue that, at the societal level, dispositional, categorization-based and rule-based trust influence employees’ out-group trust. In particular, we argue for dispositional and rule-based societal trust to increase, and for categorization-based societal trust to decrease employees’ out-group trust through different types of socialization. Using data on 25,622 employees from 42 countries, we find partial support for the coexistence of these bases of societal trust. Disentangling trust-forming and trust-impeding models, we find support for dispositional and rule-based societal trust as drivers of employees’ out-group trust, and for categorization-based societal trust as impeding employees’ out-group trust. In a combined model, however, rule-based trust is not significantly related to employees’ out-group trust. Considering the coexistence of trust and distrust, employees’ out-group trust develops through socialization effects conveying general trust in others (i.e., high dispositional trust) and the equality of social groups (i.e., low categorization-based trust).