A Multilevel Examination of Trust: The Role of Team Members’ Psychological Needs in the Formation and Emergence of Intrateam Trust
Date
2020-06-01
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Abstract
Trust is critical for team effectiveness. As a team state, intrateam trust is assumed to emerge from bottom-up processes and properties, such as individuals’ characteristics and the relational patterns and interactions between members. Despite this recognition, there is little integration across levels in the study of intrateam trust. To address this, I formulated and tested a multilevel, multi-theoretical, and multi-period framework designed to provide greater theoretical specification of the intrateam trust development process. In Study 1, I focused on the micro-level processes involving trustors and trustees that contribute to trustworthiness. Specifically, psychological needs (i.e., achievement, affiliation, and power) were found to have both negative and positive effects on trustworthiness, depending on the trust loci (i.e., trustors versus trustees). Drawing from conservation of resources theory, I suggested that needs specify team members’ unique vulnerabilities, and thus why/when they may view other members as a threat. At the same time, trustees’ needs were found to facilitate trustworthiness. In Study 2, I delineated the process by which early mutual trustworthiness ties between members coalesce to predict later emergence of intrateam trust. Briefly, results of this study revealed that ability- and integrity-based ties had the strongest effect on later levels of intrateam trust. Whereas, team-level need for affiliation also predicted the emergence of intrateam trust. Moreover, trustworthiness ties and need for affiliation were indirectly related to team performance through intrateam trust. This study also demonstrated that change in intrateam trust consensus was negative. Meaning members’ perceptions of intrateam trust became dissimilar over time. Interesting, early trustworthiness ties predicted the rate of change in consensus. Taken together, this dissertation reveals several novel insights pertaining to the intrateam trust development process occurring at different levels (i.e., individual, dyad, team, and time), and contributes to both the teams and trust literatures.
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Teams, Psychological needs, Trust, Intrateam trust, Team dynamics, Team performance, Individual differences, Social relations modeling, Emergence
Citation
Larson, N. L. (2020). A Multilevel Examination of Trust: The Role of Team Members’ Psychological Needs in the Formation and Emergence of Intrateam Trust (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.