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Wildman JL, Warren C, Deepak P, Fry TN, Nyein KP, Pagan AD. Trust violation at work: Lived experiences of American, Indian, and Chinese employees. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CROSS CULTURAL MANAGEMENT 2022. [DOI: 10.1177/14705958221112755] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/15/2022]
Abstract
Despite decades of research establishing that trust is critical to successful collaboration, the experience of trust violation is poorly understood independent of trust repair. Furthermore, despite increasing globalization, most organizational research on trust violation is heavily Westernized. This semi-structured interview study explored subjective experiences of trust violation at work across 23 individuals from the United States, India, and China to better understand similarities and differences in the unfolding reactions to trust violations across cultures. Our inductive thematic analysis identifies some trust violation triggers common to all three nationalities (i.e., psychological contract breach, professional attack, lack of work ethic) and some triggers unique to certain nationalities (i.e., lack of acknowledgment for Indian workers; excessive monitoring and injustice perceptions for Chinese workers). Regarding reactions to trust violations, American workers emphasized a central reaction of anger, Indian workers described more varied emotional and behavioral reactions possibly reflecting cultural complexity, and Chinese workers described reactions of emotion suppression and behavioral avoidance that align with theories of face. For American and Indian workers, violations damaged both interpersonal relationships and attitudes towards one’s job, whereas for Chinese workers, violations damaged only the focal interpersonal relationship. We discuss the implications of our descriptive, nationality-specific unfolding models of trust violation for advancing cross-cultural research on trust violations at work.
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Sachsenmaier S, Guo Y. Building trust in cross-cultural integration: A study of Chinese mergers and acquisitions in Germany. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CROSS CULTURAL MANAGEMENT 2019. [DOI: 10.1177/1470595819856387] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/17/2022]
Abstract
The phenomenon of trust and trust building has been widely researched with regard to different contexts and subjects. Nevertheless, the factors that influence trust building in mergers and acquisitions (M&As) and the way in which trust affects the post-M&A process remain unclear. This study explores trust development in the cross-cultural integration process following emerging country firms’ acquisitions in an advanced economy. A grounded theory model was developed to link the contextual characteristics of Chinese M&As in Germany that require the development of trust and the way in which managers understand sources of trust building. The perceived future uncertainty, different levels of technology and management, previous public discourses, and differences in institutional and cultural norms require the development of trust. The data reveal that a range of factors can foster trust development, including economic factors as well as emotional factors, such as mutual understanding, reliability, familiarity, and emotional bonding. A three-stage cross-cultural trust development theory is proposed, asserting that trust can be established based on economic factors, improved through mutual understanding and reliability, and further developed based on familiarity and emotional bonding. Trust development influences the acquiring firm’s behavior with regard to the transparency in information policies, the integration in decision-making, the exercise of control over the acquired firm, and the granting of autonomy in the cross-cultural integration processes.
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