Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.Academy of Management is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Academy of Management Review.

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.Academy of Management is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Academy of Management Review.

No abstract

Recent theoretical developments have enabled the empirical study of trust for specific referents in organizations. The authors conducted a 14-month field study of employee trust for top management. A 9-month quasi-experiment found that the implementation of a more acceptable performance appraisal system increased trust for top management. The 3 proposed factors of trustworthiness (ability, benevolence, and integrity) mediated the relationship between perceptions of the appraisal system and trust.

Researchers for decades have believed that trust increases performance, but empirical evidence of this has been sparse. This study investigates the relationship between an employee's trust in the plant manager and in the top management team with the employee's in-role performance and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB). Results support a fully mediated model in which trust in both management referents was positively related to focus of attention, which, in turn, was positively related to performance. The results raise questions about appropriate levels of analysis for outcome variables.

No abstract

SummaryThis research develops and investigates the concept of reciprocal trust between interacting teams. Reciprocal trust is defined as the trust that results when a party observes the actions of another and reconsiders one's trust-related attitudes and subsequent behaviors based on those observations. Twenty-four teams of systems analysis and design students were involved in a 6-week controlled field study focused on the development of an information systems project. Each team was responsible for both developing a system (development role) and for supervising the development of a system by another team (management role). Risk-taking actions exhibited by one team in an interacting pair were found to predict the other team's trustworthiness perceptions and subsequent trust. The level of trust formed in turn predicted the team's subsequent risk-taking behaviors with respect to the other team. This pattern of reciprocal trust repeated itself as the teams continued to interact over the duration of the project, thus supporting our model of reciprocal trust. Findings also indicate that trust and trust formation can occur at the team level.

No abstract