Developing high trust work relationships
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# 3 Trust as a belief

In order to further our understanding of trust as a phenomenon, it is useful at this stage to consider why we may trust or distrust another person. Within the context of the organisation, why do we choose to trust a co-worker or line manager or senior manager?

According to one theoretical perspective, trust can be seen as a belief. In other words, we trust someone if we believe that certain ‘properties’ or ‘actions’ are associated with that person.

A description of ‘trust as belief’ is provided by Cummings and Bromiley (1996, pp. 303–5) in the extract below.

#### Extract

Trust as a threefold belief

‘Trust [is] defined as an individual’s belief or a common belief among a group of individuals that another individual or group (a) makes good-faith efforts to behave in accordance with any commitments both explicit or implicit, (b) is honest in whatever negotiations preceded such commitments, and (c) does not take excessive advantage of another even when the opportunity is available. The rationale for this definition of trust rests on the socially embedded, subjective, and optimistic nature of most interactions within and between organizations that involve trust. Much of organizational interaction rests strongly on these three characteristics and thus makes trust so centrally important.

The contrasting position, dominant in many economic formulations of organizational action, depicts individuals acting alone in a strictly self-interested objective fashion and driven by pessimistic assumptions about other individual actors. …That is, in transaction cost economics, actors lie in negotiations, cheat on any deals if it is profitable to do so, and exploit opportunities for renegotiation to their utmost.

We assert that in many important situations, such a depiction is both inaccurate and inadequate. …Our definition of trust rests on a view of organizational action based largely on good-faith effort, honesty in exchange, and limited opportunism.’

(Cummings and Bromiley, 1996, pp. 303–5)

The idea of trust as a belief can be usefully explored by testing your own trust ‘belief’ system in a test instrument called the ‘Organisational Trust Inventory’. This is the topic of the next activity.

## Activity 4: The Organisational Trust Inventory

Allow 60 minutes for this activity

The Organisational Trust Inventory was developed in 1995 by Philip Bromiley and Larry Cummings as a means of analysing the levels of trust both within and between organisations. For the purposes of this activity we have adjusted the inventory slightly to ask you to assess your view of both your line manager and senior management more broadly within your organisations (we recognise that your line manager may or may not fall into this second group).

Click on the ‘view’ link below to complete the questionnaire. When you have done so, look at the bar chart and examine where you have different scores between senior management and your line manager. Consider why that might be and write some notes in the box below. If you have difficulty differentiating the different bars on the bar chart, please see the further description below. .

## Further description

The figure comprises a set of statements numbered from 1 to 12. You are required to provide an answer for each statement for your view of both your ‘line manager’ and ‘senior management’ by choosing one of the following options from a drop down box: Strongly disagree, disagree, slightly disagree, neither agree nor disagree, slightly agree, agree, strongly agree.

The answers you select will generate bars at the bottom of the diagram in the form of a bar chart. The size of the bar rangers from the shortest denoting strongly disagree to the tallest denoting strongly agree. The bars relating to the line manager options have dashes on, and the bars relating to the senior management answers are in solid colour.

(A text entry box would appear here, but your browser does not support it.)

## Discussion

It is not uncommon to find you have a higher level of trust in your line manager than in senior management more generally. This may be the reflection of more distance or more control, or other factors. You may want to consider whether a greater or lesser degree of trust is reasonable and whether you are more likely to trust someone when you work more closely with them.

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