Antecedents of trust in managers: a “bottom up” approach

Abstract

Research on antecedents of trust has, so far, yielded results that do not easily stand up to confrontation with the widely‐held assumption of bounded rationality. By employing complex constructs as indicators of antecedents, it is implied that actors, in pondering on trust in managers, can deal with many complex cues, instead of a few single ones, as bounded rationality suggests. This study proposes a different approach, by searching for a parsimonious set of managerial behaviours that serve as cues for subordinates regarding trust in managers. Interview and survey data were combined in this search. Regression analysis and a Boolean pattern analysis were used to arrive at a parsimonious model with high explanatory power.