Dynamics of trust and distrust in hierarchical relationships in China

Resum

The aim of this dissertation is to advance our knowledge on trust and distrust in hierarchical relationships in China, in response to the increasing importanceof trust and distrust in interpersonal relationships. In particular, we focus on three issues that are under discurssion in current literature: universal trust building processes across different cultures (etic construct), cultural-specific dufferences in trust building process in China (emic construct), and distrust developing processes in China. For this purpose, we perform theree different studies that I presente as independent essays in this dissertation. In our first essay, we replicate Elola and Cardona's "reciprocal" trust model in the Chinese context. We address two questions: 1) can we generalize Elola and Cardona's trust model in the Chinese context? 2) are models with data from China and Latin America identical, or they are different? Results suggest that we could generalize the "reciprocal" trust model in the Chinese context. Although the "reciprocal" trust model works in China, results also show that some paremeters are not equivalent when we compare models with data from China and Latin America. Because we measure the same items in our study and the only difference is the location of samples, one explanation of the difference could be cultural diferences. Following the first essay, the second essay aims to explore impacts of national culture on the "reciprocal" trust model. The specific purpose of this essay is to address different findings with data sets from China and Latin America. We argue that guaxi, a specific Chinese concept, has different impacts on components in hierarchical trust relationships in China. We first develop a new Chinese trust scale, which includes harmony. results show that we could add harmony as an item to measure trust in the Chinese context. When we introduce the concept of guanxi in our "reciprocal" trust model, results show that guanxi has different impacts on all componente of the model. Guanxi has direct and indirect effects on different paths of the medel. The indirect effects can either amplify or weaken the impact of beahaviors on trust. In the final essay, we move our study from trust to distrust. This essay aims to identify antecedents and autcomes of distrust in hierarchical realtionships in China. We first develop a theoretical model of distrust formulation and then empirically test the model. Results show that managers' distrusting behaviors (managers' inappropriate behaviors that may violate the psychological contract in hierarchical relationships) lead to subordinates' distrust. Subordinates' distrust infmanagers is positively related to subordinates' job dissatisfaction, and subordinates' job dissatisfaction is negativel related to their organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs). After presenting these three essays, we present some conclusions regarding the three essays combined. Then, we propose some directions for future research, in which we want to overcome limitations of our presents studies. Finally, we provide implications for managers who are concerned with issues of trust and distrust in hierarchical realationships in China.