Building Trust at the workplace – A matter of Position & Culture

The level of trust in the workplace significantly influences organisational effectiveness and productivity. While trust is difficult to define and measure in organisations, it is becoming more crucial to develop and encourage it, especially in today’s complex volatile business environment. While some research emphasised the concepts of ‘ability’, ‘benevolence’ and ‘integrity’ as means of increasing trust in organisations, are their effects the same for all members of an organisation, and across all cultures? Tan Hwee Hoon is an Associate Professor of Organisational Behaviour & Human Resources at the SMU Lee Kong Chian School of Business. She has been researching on organisational trust for the past 15 years and was recently awarded, together with her co-researchers, a research grant of over $1.2 million to examine cross-cultural organisational trust. In this podcast, Assoc Prof Tan discusses her research which examines trust-building between subordinates and supervisors in four countries – China, India, Turkey and The Netherlands.