Team trust over time: Modeling reciprocal and contextual influences in action teams

Abstract

Team trust is increasingly being recognized as important for team performance, but little is currently understood about how it develops and evolves over the course of a team's lifespan. Because trust and related team constructs are inherently dynamic, this represents a critical gap in the literature that needs to be addressed before team trust can be fully understood and effectively facilitated in practice. Of particular relevance to these gaps are action teams – those that come together to perform under time-constrained, yet often high-stakes conditions. While scholars have begun to explore how trust develops in these contexts, little is understood about how it evolves over time. As such, we propose a theoretical model of team trust in action teams that incorporates its dynamic nature, models the reciprocal relationship between team trust and team performance, delineates unique mediating pathways based on the team's progression in the multiphasic performance cycle, and considers the role of moderating influences that may strengthen or attenuate the impact of performance feedback on subsequent team trust. Specific research implications are discussed, providing a rich foundation for future empirical studies, and ultimately, the generation of evidence-based interventions for facilitating trust as teams cycle through multiple performance episodes over time.