국내 신뢰 연구의 동향과 향후 연구방향에 대한 제언

Abstract

It has been well recognized that trust has a favorable influence on employee attitude,behavior, and performance, as well as organizational effectiveness. Accordingly, studies on trust have long flourished in various academic fields. In Korea, however, studies on trust started only around 2000, with a steady increase since then. However, previous studies on trust have rarely been systematically reviewed. Hence, the main purpose of our study is to summarize the existing research and to provide suggestions for future research through a comprehensive review of 96 studies on trust that have been published in major academic journals in the field of organizational behavior and human resource management. Our study comprises two sections. The first section is intended to summarize the results of in-depth analysis of topics such as trends and limitations, and the second section contains our suggestions for future research on trust in Korea. The findings regarding trends and limitations can be summarized as follows: First,conceptual analysis has demonstrated that, similar to studies in the West, most studies in Korea have researched trust using a psychological state approach, where trust is defined as the willingness of a party to be vulnerable to others (Mayer et al., 1995). Additionally,trustworthiness, which is defined as the characteristics that inspire favorable expectations of others, also has been researched as a concept synonymous with trust. However, although studies with a multi-dimensional concept of trust have increased, studies on the interrelationships among sub-dimensions of trust, such as developmental patterns an configurational characteristics,have not yet been conducted. Second, in terms of measurement analysis, we found that 51 trust measures were used,and approximately 70% of those measures (36) were used only once. This means that trust measures are extremely diverse, and thus there is little consistency in their use. Even so,most of these measures have been generally consistent with the definition of trust in each study; however, some studies did not operationalize trust measures in accordance with their definition of trust. Taken together, the use of diverse trust measures and the issues of inconsistency between trust measures and definitions seen in Korea are similar to those frequently seen in Western studies. Third, our analysis of empirical findings revealed that both transformational and transactional leadership have been studied primarily as antecedents. In most studies, job satisfaction,organizational commitment, and organizational citizenship behavior have been addressed as consequence of trust in most studies. In contrast, studies dealing with job and/or organizational characteristics and trustors’ personal characteristics (e.g., personality) as antecedents of trust have been lacking. In addition, the moderators that affect the relationship between antecedent and trust have not been fully addressed. Empirical findings in Korea are similar to findings in Western studies in that trust has a strong relationship with employees' attitude,behavior, and performance in sequence. However, Korean findings differ in that procedural justice has a stronger relationship with trust in an organization than trust in a leader. Fourth, our analysis of research methods found that most studies in Korea have been empirical studies based on survey. In terms of research type, many studies have addressed trust in the context of vertical relationships between leader or management and employees rather than horizontal relationships among co-workers. In addition, most studies on trust have been conducted in the context of interpersonal relationships rather than inter-group or inter-organization relationships. Based on the above discussion, we suggest directions for future research on trust in Korea. First, a more diverse approach toward trust that incorporates factors such as personality and behavior is needed. To this end, not only the currently prevailing survey-based research but also qualitative research (e.g., in-depth interviews, case studies) should be encouraged. Second, we suggest that certain trust measures should be continuously used to identify which trust measures are valid in Korea and to accumulate empirical studies that use the same trust measures. Future researchers should strive to obtain consistency between measures and concepts of trust in their studies. Third, the developmental process and configuration of multi-dimensional trust should be examined. Moreover, the effects of cultural characteristics on each sub-dimension of trust are also worthy of study. Fourth, researchers must try to identify factors influencing the betrayal of trust and the repair of damaged trust. Fifth, to diversify research variables in trust studies, studies on the relationship between trust and affect, the effects of organizational characteristics on trust and the negative consequences of trust should be introduced. Finally, future studies should examine trust through the simultaneous consideration of multiple targets of trust (e.g., leader and co-worker), and trustor and trustee. In addition, beyond interpersonal trust, studies on inter-group and inter-organizational trust are needed.