Abstract
The concept of coworker trust has gained importance for the last decade due to increased teamwork and collaboration within organizations. However, there is a need to study the concept of trust with emic perspective reflecting people or society’s different values, norms and expectations. The aim of this study is to examine the role of allocentrism and idiocentrism, which represent individual level manifestations of collectivism and individualism on coworker trust and its dimension (i.e. affect- and cognition-based trust). Besides that, this study investigates whether willingness to work with somebody else is affected by cognitiveor affect-based trust. Data were gathered from German and Turkish samples and analyzed separately. Hypotheses were supported in a German sample such that allocentrism predicted both overall coworker trust and affect-based trust, while idiocentrism predicted cognition-based trust. In Turkish sample, allocentrism was found to be associated with overall coworker trust and cognition-based trust. Neither idiocentrism, nor allocentrism could predict affect-based trust in this sample. Remarkably, willingness to work with German coworkers was associated with cognitive-based trust. The results demonstrated the differential effects of idiocentrism and allocentrism on coworker trust and they are discussed together with its implications.
Highlights
Whether it is directed towards coworkers, subordinates, supervisors or organizations does not matter, trust is a critical variable in the development of any kind of relationship with the organizations
Results of Regression Analysis: A standard multiple regression analysis was performed between overall coworker trust as the dependent variable and idiocentrism and allocentrism as independent variables
In German sample, 10%; in Turkish sample, 11% of the variability in coworker trust was predicted by knowing the scores of idiocentrism and allocentrism
Summary
Whether it is directed towards coworkers, subordinates, supervisors or organizations does not matter, trust is a critical variable in the development of any kind of relationship with the organizations. Trust reflecting “one's willingness to be vulnerable to an organization's or another person's actions (Mayer, Davis & Schoorman, 1995, p.712), is argued to lower transaction costs, facilitate inter-organizational relationships, enhance manager-subordinate relationships (Doney, Cannon & Mullen, 1998), teamwork (Lawler, 1992), increase job satisfaction, organizational commitment and job performance (Dirks & Ferrin, 2001) and boost organizational citizenship behaviors (Deluga, 1995). Many studies have been conducted about the antecedents and consequences of trust. These studies contributed to the understanding and management of trust, the previous studies have been conducted mainly by and on Westerners holding individualistic tendencies (Chen, Chen & Meindl, 1998). Apart from reflecting the individualistic nature of Western societies, these studies focused more on the organizational context as an antecedent of trust (Lewicki, McAllister & Bies, 1998). Progress has been made to understand the emic nature of the trust, new studies are needed to understand how trust was shaped in different cultures and how people of different cultures approached the concept of trust
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
