A cross‐cultural study of supervisory trust

Abstract

Purpose This study examines the relationship of a supervisor's affect‐based trust and cognition‐based trust to a subordinate employee's self‐ratings of enterprising behavior, which includes creativity, risk taking, initiative, motivation, and assertiveness, and to the supervisor's and coworker's ratings of the subordinate's enterprising behavior. The extent to which the power distance and in‐group collectivism cultural variables moderate the relationship between affect‐based trust and enterprising behavior is assessed. Design/methodology/approach Survey responses of US, Turkish, Polish, and Russian supervisor‐subordinate‐coworker triads were collected in a number of firms. Regression results were employed to test the research hypotheses. Findings The findings of this study show that the supervisor's cognition‐based trust and affect‐based trust of the employee are associated with that employee's enterprising behavior. Significant two‐way interactions indicate that the relationship between affect‐based trust and enterprising behavior is stronger in the three collectivist countries than in the individualist USA. The moderating effects of power distance, on the other hand, appear to be negligible. Originality/value The main implication of this study's results is that human relations theories, which are based on the supervisor's top‐down trust of the subordinate employee, may be more effective in collectivist cultures than in individualist cultures.