Implications of Trust and Distrust for Organizations: Role of Customer Orienttaion in a Four-Nation Study

IMPLICATIONS OF TRUST AND DISTRUST FOR ORGANIZATIONS: ROLE OF CUSTOMER ORIENTTAION IN A FOUR-NATION STUDY

By:

Heh Jason Huang

Department of Business Administration

National Sun Yat-Sen University

Taiwan.

(jhuang@cm.nsysu.edu.tw)

and

Ali Dastmalchian*

Faculty of Business

University of Victoria

Canada

(dastmal@uvic.ca)

______________________

* Ali Dastmalchian, Faculty of Business, University of Victoria, PO Box 1700, STN CSC, Victoria, BC, Canada V8W 2Y2.

IMPLICATIONS OF TRUST AND DISTRUST FOR ORGANIZATIONS: ROLE OF CUSTOMER ORIENTTAION IN A FOUR-NATION STUDY

Abstract

This paper examines the notions of societal trust and distrust and their association with customer orientation, and the impact of such association on organizational and HRM aspects of cautiousness, culture for change and job satisfaction in banks. It is suggested that trust and the absence of distrust have positive associations with customer orientation. Customer orientation in turn was expected to be positively related employee cautiousness and job satisfaction, and that the cooperative climate moderates the association between trust and customer orientation. Based on the suggestions in the literature (Lewicki, McAllister and Bies, 1998) this paper provides evidence to support the assertion that concepts of trust and distrust are not part of the same continuum. The data for this paper were collected from 812 bank employees in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the U.S. The results show a positive association between trust and customer orientation, and provide support for the conceptual distinction between societal trust and distrust. In addition, he study shows that the presence of a culture for change in banks moderates the relationship between societal trust and customer orientation. The results also suggest the overall importance of exercising cautiousness in the banking industry. Implications of the findings for human resource management and for future...