Business Commons^™

Formal Versus Informal Supervisor Socio-Emotional Support Behaviours And Employee Trust: The Role Of Cultural Power Distance, Jaee Cho, S. Arzu Wasti, Krishna Savani, Hwee Hoon Tan, Michael W. Morris

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This research investigates how formal versus informal supervisor support behaviours shape employees' affect- and cognition-based trust across cultures of varying power distance. Using data from in-depth interviews, Study 1 found that trust-enhancing supervisor behaviours were more formal, status conscious and imposing in India (a high power distance culture) than in the Netherlands (a low power distance culture); unlike in India, supervisors acted more like friends or equals with their subordinates in the Netherlands. Using vignettes, Study 2 found that, compared to informal support behaviours, formal support behaviours increased both affect- and cognition-based trust among Indian participants, but among US participants, …

Formal Versus Informal Supervisor Socio-Emotional Support Behaviors And Employee Trust: The Role Of Cultural Power Distance, Jaee Cho, S. Arzu Wasti, Krishna Savani, Hwee Hoon Tan, Michael W. Morris

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This research investigates how formal versus informal supervisor support behaviours shape employees' affect- and cognition-based trust across cultures of varying power distance. Using data from in-depth interviews, Study 1 found that trust-enhancing supervisor behaviours were more formal, status conscious and imposing in India (a high power distance culture) than in the Netherlands (a low power distance culture); unlike in India, supervisors acted more like friends or equals with their subordinates in the Netherlands. Using vignettes, Study 2 found that, compared to informal support behaviours, formal support behaviours increased both affect- and cognition-based trust among Indian participants, but among US participants, …

Trust Across Borders: A Review Of The Research On Interorganizational Trust In International Business, Tengjian Zou, Gokhan Ertug, Ilya R. P. Cuypers, Donald L. Ferrin

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Trust between organizations has been recognized as crucial in international business (IB) and has attracted extensive research attention. Researchers have conceptualized and measured interorganizational trust in multiple ways, investigated numerous determinants and outcomes of interorganizational trust, and explored interorganizational trust in several types of international relationships across a range of country combinations using varied research methodologies. Our review aims to consolidate and advance this literature by focusing on (i) how interorganizational trust has been conceptualized in IB; (ii) how interorganizational trust has been operationalized in IB; (iii) what factors promote or hinder interorganizational trust in IB; (iv) what the outcomes …

Relative Power And Interpersonal Trust, Christilene Du Plessis, My Hoang Bao Nguyen, Trevor A. Foulk, Michael Schaerer

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Because trust is essential in the development and maintenance of well-functioning relationships, scholars across numerous scientific disciplines have sought to determine what causes people to trust others. Power dynamics are known to predict trust, but research on the relationship between power and trust is inconclusive, with mixed results and without systematic consideration of how the relative power distribution within dyadic relationships may influence trust in those relationships. Building on interdependence theory, we propose that both individuals in an unequal-power dyad trust each other less than individuals in an equal-power dyad because unequal-power dyads heighten the perception of a conflict of …

Investing In Low-Trust Countries: On The Role Of Social Trust In The Global Mutual Fund Industry, Massimo Massa, Chengwei Wang, Hong Zhang, Jian Zhang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We hypothesize that social trust, in mitigating contracting incompleteness, may have an important effect on the activeness and effectiveness of delegated portfolio management. Using a complete sample of worldwide open-end mutual funds, we find that trust is positively associated with the activeness of funds and that trust-related active share delivers superior performance (e.g., approximately 2% per year for cross-border investments). Moreover, "trust in the market" and "trust in managers" play important yet different roles for different types of cross-border delegated portfolio management. Our results suggest that trust acts as a fundamental building block for delegated portfolio management.

Towards A Calibrated Trust-Based Approach To The Use Of Facial Recognition Technology, Gary Kok Yew Chan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The use of facial recognition technology has given rise to much debate relating to issues concerning privacy infringements, bias and inaccuracies of data and outputs, possibilities of covert use, the lack of data security and the problem of function creep. Certain states and jurisdictions have called for bans and moratoria on the use of facial recognition technology. This paper argues that a blanket ban on facial recognition technology would be overly precautionary without fully considering the wide range of uses and benefits of the innovation. To promote its acceptance, trust in facial recognition technology should be developed in a calibrated …

Trust In Fair Value Accounting: Evidence From The Field, Clarence Goh, Chu Yeong Lim, Jeffery Ng, Gary Pan, Kevin Ow Yong

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

We survey stakeholders in the financial reporting process to examine trust in fair value accounting. Although respondents demonstrate high confidence in financial statements, they believe that fair value accounting decreases trust in financial reporting and that preparing fair value numbers is costly but beneficial. They also strongly believe in the Conceptual Framework underlying standard setting. Using multivariate regression analyses, we find that perceiving fair value accounting as beneficial is positively associated with trust in it, consistent with the theory of reasoned action that people engage in behavior (e.g., trust) based on expected positive outcomes of that behavior. We find that …

Why Do Robots Have Smiley Faces?, Mark Findlay

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The author discussed why engineers and designers provide machines with the semblance of friendliness, and why it takes more than that for humans to trust AI. The ground-breaking AI in community research and policy initiative by CAIDG, supported by the National Research Foundation Singapore under its Emerging Areas Research Projects Funding Initiative, seeks to understand how and why trust can be established when humans and machines come together.

Trust And Retirement Preparedness: Evidence From Singapore, Benedict S. K. Koh, Olivia S. Mitchell, Joelle H. Fong

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Trust is an essential component of any financial system, and distrust can undermine savings and economic growth. Our study draws on the Singapore Life Panel to assess how trust ties to older respondents’ (1) pension plan participation and withdrawals; (2) life, health, and long-term care insurance holdings; and (3) stock market engagement. We show that the widely-used ‘trust in people’ question is uncorrelated with household behaviours related to retirement preparedness. Instead, trust in private and public financial representatives is positively associated with pension savings, investments, and insurance holdings. Financial literacy also plays an important and consistent role in retirement decision-making.

The Role Of Employee Proactive Behaviors In Influencing Supervisors’ Trust In Employees, Ngai Meng Ho

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

In organizations, proactive employees make things happen. They anticipate, initiate, and drive meaningful changes for a better future. Such proactive behaviors can be manifested in different forms. Initiating work improvements and voicing for changes are examples of the different proactive behaviors commonly demonstrated by employees.

Empirical studies have associated proactive behaviors at work with a range of positive workplace outcomes. However, only limited research has examined how proactive behaviors might be related to one particularly important outcome, trust, i.e., whether an employee’s proactive behaviors will influence the supervisor’s trust toward the employee. Accordingly, in this present research, I conducted two …

Reputation Matters: Building Internal Trust And Resilience With Effective Communication, Su Lin Yeo

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Reputation is a crucial driver of business performance. In today’s crisis-ridden business environment, this corporate quality has never been more prized in organizations. Research has time and again demonstratedthat a favorable reputation offers long-term value for organizations. Reputation impacts everything from financial to relationships represented by public’s confidence in brand equity, human capital, earnings and future growth. Reputation-led companies have been shown to set the standard by leading the pack for other businesses to follow, and in times of a crisis, the reputation capital that they have amassed enable them to better recover from economic storms. However, unlike other business …

Strengthening Social Fabric And Quality Of Life, Singapore Management University

Research Collection Office of Research

In this booklet, read about our research in the area of “Strengthening Social Fabric and Quality of Life”.

Contents:

Well-being of People, Groups, Organisations, Societies

• Serving the Underserved
• Does Family Background Affect Socioeconomic Mobility?
• Becoming a Happy Analyst
• Effective Childcare Subsidies
• Birds of a Feather Flock Together

Successful Ageing of People, of Populations

• Economic and Social Aspects of Ageing Successfully
• Exploring the Effectiveness of Smart Technologies in Eldercare
• Keeping our Silver Edge Sharp
• Sleep Quality & Dementia

Social Inclusion, Exclusion, Inequality

• The Helping Hand of Diversity
• Protecting Vulnerable Adults
• Finding the Path to an Inclusive Society
• Well-being of Singapore Youth …

Trust And Local Bias, Chi Shen Wei, Lei Zhang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper examines the effect of social trust on local bias. Our evidence suggests that institutional investors located in high-trust regions of the United States exhibit lower local bias. Moreover, we find that high-trust investors are better diversified, suggesting that trust helps accomplish greater diversification. The results are not due to firm, demographic, or local economic characteristics. Additional analysis reveals that the documented informational advantage in local holdings exists only in low-trust regions. We show that this finding is consistent with a trust explanation.

Auditor Choice And Information Asymmetry: Evidence From International Syndicated Loans, Zhiming Ma, Derrald Stice, Rencheng Wang

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Analyzing a large sample of non-US public firms from 31 countries that obtain private loans, we find that loan syndicates that lend to borrowers that employ Big N auditors are larger and less concentrated and that the lead arrangers and largest investors of these syndicates are able to hold a lower proportion of the loan after issuance. Further analysis demonstrates that this effect exists only in countries with strong creditor rights and in those countries with high levels of societal trust, suggesting that both sound formal and informal institutional factors are prerequisites for lenders and borrowers to benefit from differential …

How Ties With Family Members Influence Professionals' Creativity In Family Businesses: The Role Of Hive Effect And Trust, Rameshwari Ramachandra

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Many Asian enterprises are family businesses. In recent years, there has been a growing body of research on creativity in Asian firms, but few studies on the creativity of the professionals working in Asian family businesses. Given the importance of creativity in family businesses for their continued success, I examined how a professional’s ties to family members in a family business influenced their creativity. I proposed that the number of family members in a professional’s network would positively predict the professional’s creativity, and that this effect would be mediated by the family members’ affective and cognitive trust in the professional. …

Mandates Of Dishonesty: The Psychological And Social Costs Of Mandated Attitude Expression, Marko Pitesa, Zen Goh, Stefan Thau

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper explains and tests empirically why people employed in product promotion are less willing to trust others. Product promotion is a prototypical setting in which employees are mandated to express attitudes that are often not fully sincere. On the basis of social projection theory, we predicted that organizational agents mandated to express insincere attitudes project their self-perceived dishonesty onto others and thus become more distrustful. An initial large-scale, multi-country field study found that individuals employed in jobs requiring product promotion were less trusting than individuals employed in other jobs—particularly jobs in which honesty is highly expected. We then conducted …

Workplace Trust As A Mechanism Of Employee (Dis)Advantage: The Case Of Employee Socioeconomic Status, Marko Pitesa, Stefan Thau, Madan M. Pillutla

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Early work on trust in social science highlighted how the lack of trust between individuals can cause social division, contribute to social stratification, and reduce economic opportunities for people from all social groups. We integrate this work with organizational research on antecedents of trust to generate predictions explaining when and why low employee socioeconomic status (SES) can be a barrier to trust. We discuss how this process can impair the success of both organizations as well as their lower-SES employees. We present a model, and data, suggesting that lower-SES employees will be both more distrusted as well as more distrustful …

Effects Of Informal Institutions On The Relationship Between Accounting Measures Of Risk And Bank Distress, Kiridaran Kanagaretnam, Jimmy Lee, Chee Yeow Lim, Gerald J. Lobo

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

We investigate the effects of informal institutions (trust, religiosity and the media) on the relationship between accounting-based risk measures and bank distress. We conduct our analysis in two stages. In the first stage, we extend the prior literature by documenting a link between accounting-based risk measures and bank distress during the 2008-2009 financial crisis. In particular, given the environment characterized by rapid growth in financial innovation and complex financial transactions prior to the crisis, simple accounting-based risk measures continue to predict bank distress during this crisis period. In the second stage, we address our main research question related to the …

Charitable Fundraising: Gaining Donors' Trust On Online Platforms, Deserinas Sulaeman

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Trust is crucial in the relationships between charitable fundraisers and potential donors. This study examines factors that can help fundraisers gain potential donors’ trust, which is crucial to the success of the campaigns. Examining charitable fundraising campaigns on an online platform, this study finds that trust issues can be mitigated by providing a campaign description that is more sophisticated, more informative, and with fewer errors. Additionally, setting a higher campaign funding goal tends to lead to a more successful campaign. These characteristics likely reflect a competent, committed, and passionate fundraiser. On the other hand, mere exposure to a wide set …

What Are The Determinants Of Interpersonal Trust In Dyadic Negotiations? Meta-Analytic Evidence And Implications For Future Research, Serena Changhong Lu, Dejun Tony Kong, Donald Lee Ferrin, Kurt T. Dirks

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Given the practical importance of interpersonal trust in dyadic negotiations, scholars have increasingly turned their attention to the study of determinants of trust in negotiations. However, research in this area has not been well connected or integrated, which limits the ability of scholars and practitioners to ascertain the state of current scientific knowledge and identify questions for future research. Based on attribution theory and social exchange theory, we present a conceptual framework for understanding how a variety of factors combine to influence the development of interpersonal trust in dyadic negotiations. Then, to verify the conceptual framework, we identified and meta-analysed …

In Fair Value We Trust, Or Not, Joyce Tang, Nick Leong, Pan, Gary, Keng Kevin Ow Yong, Chu Yeong Lim, Tee Yong Jeffrey Ng

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

The objective of financial reporting is to provide financial information that is useful to existing and potential investors, lenders and other creditors (IASB’s Conceptual Framework ED/2015/3). General purpose financial reports provide information about the financial position of a reporting entity, as well as information about the effects of transactions and other events that will change a reporting entity’s economic resources and claims (para 1.12 ED/2015/3). Investor confidence and trust in the financial statements is a crucial component for financial markets to function smoothly. This report presents the attitudes and concerns of over 700 respondents toward fair value accounting. The survey …

Trust Building With Chinese Host Country Nationals, Fenny Ang, Hwee Hoon Tan

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Integrating the literature on trust building and cultural intelligence, the purpose of this paper is to understand how expatriate managers build trust with their host country nationals (HCNs) in China. Qualitative data collected via extensive interviews with 12 expatriate managers and 34 HCNs from seven multinational companies in Shanghai. The authors find that expatriate managers and HCN managers build trust via competence/ability at the onset. The trust relationship becomes stronger over time with the development of affect-based trust via cultural intelligence of the expatriate managers. Implications for theory and practice following the results are discussed. This study used the cultural …

Insights And Observations On The Decision To Trust In Both Science And Practice: Interview With Robert F. Hurley, Donald Lee Ferrin

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In this interview, Dr Robert F. Hurley shares his own professional journey through the worlds of scientific research on trust and the practical application of trust research. Dr Hurley also shares his views on the nature, magnitude, and causes of the science-practice gap, and he discusses how practitioners and scholars might fruitfully bridge the gap.

Establishing Hr Professionals' Influence And Credibility: Lessons From The Capital Markets And Investment Banking Sector, Paul Aldrich, Graham Dietz, Timothy Adrian Robert Clark, P.Eter Hamilton

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Through two separate studies involving 47 interviews inside 22 institutions in the capital markets and investment banking sector, we explore the levels of influence and sources of credibility for senior HR professionals, and examine the challenges they face in establishing credibility. We compare these findings against previous research, which has identified several determinants of HR's influence and credibility. Our findings confirm that HR's modest influence is contingent on the predispositions and convictions of key stakeholders, notably the CEO, but also depends on the decision being taken. We find that the basis for senior HR professionals' credibility is more individual than …

Interpersonal Trust Within Negotiations: Meta-Analytic Evidence, Critical Contingencies, And Directions For Future Research, Dejun Tony Kong, Kurt T. Dirks, Donald L. Ferrin

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Trust has long been recognized by scholars and practitioners alike as an important factor for negotiation success. However, there has been little effort to date to empirically review or theoretically synthesize the research on trust in the context of negotiations. We present a social exchange framework that describes the processes through which trust influences negotiation behaviors and outcomes. We identified three critical contingencies that modified the effects of trust on negotiation behaviors and outcomes. A meta-analysis on a sample of 38 independent studies provided considerable support for the model and also confirmed the importance of the three contingencies for understanding …

Societal Trust And Corporate Tax Avoidance, Kiridaran Kanagaretnam, Jimmy Lee, Chee Yeow Lim, Gerald J. Lobo

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Using an international sample of firms and a country-level index for societal trust, we study how differences in trust across countries relate to corporate tax avoidance. Consistent with our prediction, we find strong evidence that societal trust is negatively associated with corporate tax avoidance by firms, even after controlling for other determinants such as home country tax system characteristics. We also explore the effects of three country-level institutional characteristics – level of investor protection, disclosure requirement, and tax enforcement – on the relation between societal trust and tax avoidance. We predict and find that the effects of trust on tax …

Trust Between International Joint Venture Partners: Effects Of Home Countries, Gokhan Ertug, Ilya Cuypers, Niels G. Noorderhaven, Ben M. Bensaou

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Trust is an important factor in interorganizational relations. Interorganizational trust in cross-border relationships is likely to be influenced by the home countries of both partners. Using data on 165 international joint ventures (IJVs), we show that the perceived trustworthiness of an IJV partner is influenced by the general propensity to trust in the trustor's home country. Moreover, the trustworthiness perceived by a focal parent firm is also affected by the home country of the other IJV partner. This second effect is mitigated by experience between the partners.

Collaborating Across Cultures: Cultural Metacognition And Affect-Based Trust In Creative Collaboration, Roy Y. J. Chua, Michael W. Morris, Shira Mor

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We propose that managers adept at thinking about their cultural assumptions (cultural metacognition) are more likely than others to develop affect-based trust in their relationships with people from different cultures, enabling creative collaboration. Study 1, a multi-rater assessment of managerial performance, found that managers higher in metacognitive cultural intelligence (CQ) were rated as more effective in intercultural creative collaboration by managers from other cultures. Study 2, a social network survey, found that managers lower in metacognitive CQ engaged in less sharing of new ideas in their intercultural ties but not intracultural ties. Study 3 required participants to work collaboratively with …

Building Effective Business Relationships In China, Roy Y. J. Chua

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

China’s ways of doing business are becoming more Westernized. But non-Chinese executives still must work hard at building trust in relationships with their Chinese business partners.

Repairing Trust With Individuals Vs. Groups, Peter H. Kim, Cecily D. Cooper, Kurt T. Dirks, Donald L. Ferrin

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This study incorporates insights from research on group decision-making and trust repair to investigate the differences that arise when alleged transgressors attempt to regain the trust of groups as compared to individuals. Results indicate that repairing trust is generally more difficult with groups than individuals, and both groups and individuals were less trusting when trustees denied culpability (rather than apologized) for a competence-based violation or apologized (rather than denied culpability) for an integrity-based violation. However, the interaction of violation-type and violation-response also ultimately affected the relative difficulty of repairing trust with groups vs. individuals, with the greater harshness of groups …