Measuring Trust

Trust in teams has been primarily measured using Likert scale questionnaires, and also by monitoring amounts of interaction between team members, or by establishing team performance. Questionnaires are a popular way to measure trust in teams, and the trend throughout the literature is for constructing and adapting new questionnaires from old ones. This leads to a situation in which there are various questionnaires designed to measure trust which contain the same or very similar items, intermixed with novel items and sections lifted from measures of other concepts which authors judge to be related to trust. One concern with this trend is that as sections of previous questionnaires are used, re-used and adapted, their validity becomes suspect and it is hard to determine if they are faithful the concepts which they originally measured.

Throughout the literature one of the most widely used questionnaires to measure trust in virtual teams is the McAllister [1995] questionnaire (see Appendix 7.3). The popularity of this questionnaire is likely due to the high reliability of the measure as reported by McAllister [1995]. This questionnaire consists of three sections of Likert scale items: Behavioral Response and Interpersonal Trust Measures which are based on literature on interpersonal trust, Exogenous Measures which are based on literature on organizational in-role behaviour, and Performance Measures based on a measure for reputational effectiveness.

Many studies have used the McAllister [1995] questionnaire including Dirks [2000], Webber [2008], Wilson et al. [2006], Kanawattanachai and Yoo [2002], among others. However, while the McAllister [1995] ques- tionnaire has proved popular it was designed to be used with dyads and so is often adapted to suit particular studies. For example Wilson et al. [2006] modified the wording of the McAllister [1995] questionnaire to suit short-term groups, changing items such as ‘We have a sharing relationship’ and ‘We can both freely share our ideas and feelings’ to ‘I can freely share my ideas and feelings in this group’ . Wilson et al. [2006] used this modified McAllister [1995] questionnaire in combination with measures for participant views on teams versus individuals [Chan, 1998], within-group agreement [James et al., 1984], and interpersonal trust between individual members of each team [Johnson-George and Swap, 1982]. Wilson et al. [2006] also measured cooperation in the teams as while trust was their main focus “cooperation is among the most proximal behavioral manifestations of trust”[Rousseau et al., 1998], and cooperation was measured by comparing the amount participants used their resources to help the team rather than themselves. Similarly Webber [2008] adapted the McAllister [1995] questionnaire to measure trust in teams over time,

adding their own familiarity measure to a modified version of the original (see Appendix 7.3), and Kanawat- tanachai and Yoo [2002] used modified sections of the McAllister [1995] questionnaire in addition to mea- suring disposition to trust using a four-item scale developed by Pearce et al. [1992] (see Appendix 7.3). Kanawattanachai and Yoo [2002] argue that it is necessary to measure this concept as an individual’s dis- position to trust can influence their level of trust [McKnight et al., 1998]. Glaeser et al. [2000] developed a similar disposition to trust style of questionnaire based on a question used to measure ‘trust and social capital’ in the U.S. National Opinion Research Centers General Social Survey, “Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted or that you cant be too careful in dealing with people?”. The Glaeser et al. [2000] questionnaire consisted of questions such as “How often do you lend money to your friends?”, “Have you or someone close to you recently lost something in the mail?”, “How often do you intentionally leave your rooming groups hallway door unlocked (when nobody is home)?”, and so on. Jarvenpaa et al. [1998] developed adapted items from the trustworthiness measure of Pearce et al. [1992] and the Schoorman et al. [1996] measure for trust (see Appendix 7.3). This measure was also used by Benoit and Kelsey [2012] to measure trust and performance in virtual teams. While investigating if high levels of trust and high individual autonomy in teams can lead to low performance Langfred [2004] constructed a questionnaire from various existing measures Langfred [2004] conducted this study on student teams and measured individual performance in this study using the individual’s Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT, an assessment of general analytical, writing, quantitative, verbal, and reading skills) scores and team performance using the numerical score given by a panel of ‘raters’ to a team presentation and following question/answer session. Langfred [2004] found that “high trust was associated with higher team performance when individual autonomy was low but with lower performance when individual autonomy was high”. Similarly Jarvenpaa et al. [2004] developed a questionnaire to measure trust over time by combining a number of existing measures (see Appendix 7.3). This measure was used in addition to non-self reported measures such as Task Performance, measured using the team’s score in a team task, and communication level (the number of emails sent between team members).

While Likert scale style questionnaires are popular measures, they are not the only measure for antecedents and evidence for trust. In an investigation of trust in virtual temporary teams Iacono and Weisband [1997] coded email communication for ‘interaction initiations’ and responses, in other words like Jarvenpaa et al. [1998] and Jarvenpaa et al. [2004], Iacono and Weisband [1997] counted the number of interactions within a team.

In a PhD focusing on trust in organizations Costa [2010] developed a measure based on trust in teams working in medical and care organizations (see Appendix 7.3). The propensity to trust and perceived trustworthiness were adapted from the Philosophies of Human NatureRPHNS [Wrightsman, 1964] and the Organizational Trust InventoryOTI [Cummings and Bromiley, 1996], while the rest of the questionnaire was developed based upon the work of Costa [2010], Costa et al. [2001].

In summary, many studies of team trust rely on a mishmash of scales, adapted for use in a new context. While the literature has shown than there have been a variety of previous questionnaires adapted for use in this area of research, the McAllister [1995] and Pearce et al. [1992] questionnaires have been most commonly used, and thus potentially have a great influence over current theories of team trust.