Trust, trustworthiness, and trust propensity: A meta-analytic test of their unique relationships with risk taking and job performance.
verifiedrich profile · Journal of Applied Psychology · 2007
Colquitt, Jason A.; Scott, Brent A.; LePine, Jeffery A.
How this was studied
A meta-analytic synthesis — it pools many primary studies rather than running a single design, so there is no single-study diagram.
What this article reports
The findings we extracted from this work, normalized into Principia’s relationship form (X → Y). Each feeds the synthesized models below.
trust in organization → task performance
trust in organization → counterproductive work behaviours
Models this article informs
The meta-analytic priors this article contributes evidence to — its place in the broader synthesis.
trust in organization correlates organizational citizenship behavior ocb
trust in organization predicts counterproductive work behaviours
trust in organization predicts organizational citizenship behavior ocb
trust in organization predicts task performance
In the authors’ words
The article’s own abstract.
The trust literature distinguishes trustworthiness (the ability, benevolence, and integrity of a trustee) and trust propensity (a dispositional willingness to rely on others) from trust (the intention to accept vulnerability to a trustee based on positive expectations of his or her actions). Although this distinction has clarified some confusion in the literature, it remains unclear (a) which trust antecedents have the strongest relationships with trust and (b) whether trust fully mediates the effects of trustworthiness and trust propensity on behavioral outcomes. Our meta-analysis of 132 independent samples summarized the relationships between the trust variables and both risk taking and job performance (task performance, citizenship behavior, counterproductive behavior). Meta-analytic structural equation modeling supported a partial mediation model wherein trustworthiness and trust propensity explained incremental variance in the behavioral outcomes when trust was controlled. Further analyses revealed that the trustworthiness dimensions also predicted affective commitment, which had unique relationships with the outcomes when controlling for trust. These results generalized across different types of trust measures (i.e., positive expectations measures, willingness-to-be-vulnerable measures, and direct measures) and different trust referents (i.e., leaders, coworkers).
What the literature says about it
Attributed, open-access quotes from other works that cite this article, plus the citation-graph verdict tally. Corroborations and disputes, in one place — the honest-broker view.
supports “Considering relations between employee logical and emotional forms of trust in leader and outcome variables, Dirks and Ferrin’s (2002) reported positive associations with organizational commitment, OCB, job performance, and job satisfaction, respectively, and both were negatively associated with intent to quit.”
supports “Various scholars reported that general trust in leaders mediated respective relations between other-orientated leadership styles such as transformational leadership and servant leadership and various outcomes, e.g., employee affective organizational commitment and job performance (Zhu et al. 2013), team psychological safety and team potency (Schaubroeck et al. 2011), and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB; Nohe and Hertel 2017).”
supports “Various scholars reported that general trust in leaders mediated respective relations between other-orientated leadership styles such as transformational leadership and servant leadership and various outcomes, e.g., employee affective organizational commitment and job performance (Zhu et al. 2013), team psychological safety and team potency (Schaubroeck et al. 2011), and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB; Nohe and Hertel 2017).”
supports “Trust in the workplace whether it exists between co-workers, leaders and followers, employers and employees, between different organizations or towards an institution has been shown to have a strong and robust influence on a variety of organizational phenomena, including job satisfaction, organizational citizenship behaviors, organizational commitment, turnover, job, employee & team performance, innovative, workplace, and counterproductive behaviors, organizational revenue and profit (e.g. Dirks, 2000; Ferrin, 2001; Flaherty & Pappas, 2000; Frenkel, & Orlitzky, 2005; Tan and Tan, 2000; Simmons & Mclean, 2000; Colquitt et al., 2007)”
supports “Trust contributes to enriched performance and positive organizational citizenship behavior (Lewicki et al., 2006; Colquitt et al., 2007).”
Ancillary research
Neighbouring works in the citation graph around this article.
- 10.1111/j.1539-6924.2010.01398.x
- 10.55214/25768484.v8i6.2269
- 10.3390/admsci13110233
- 10.1177/0149206312471392
- 10.47344/5wn62370
- 10.1177/09500170241254333
- 10.5539/ibr.v4n2p125
- 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.954052
Assembled from Principia’s registry — bibliographic record, extracted effect sizes, the models they inform, and open-access citing literature.