The concept of trustworthiness: A cross‐cultural comparison between Japanese and U.S. business people

Abstract

A card sorting procedure was used to explore the structure of Japanese and American business people's concept of trustworthiness. Each of115 Japanese and 121 U.S. respondents was asked to sort thirty trust‐related words. Hierarchical cluster analyses and multidimensional scaling indicated that Japanese emphasize organizational commitment, while Americans emphasize personal integrity in judging another's trustworthiness. These differences between the two cultural groups were interpreted as evidence of an “interdependent”; versus an “independent”; view of trustworthiness in an organizational setting, and may help explain persistent miscommunication about trustworthiness between Japanese and U.S. colleagues.

Key words:

• trustworthiness
• intercultural communication
• Japanese‐U.S. communication
• organizational communication
• trust in organizations
• multi‐dimensional scaling
• cluster analysis
• concept explication