Development and validation of a propensity to trust scale

Abstract

Though trust researchers recognise the importance of a dispositional component to forming trusting relationships in the workplace, there has been comparatively little research on propensity to trust in the literature. We review the literature, discuss prior measures of propensity to trust, and integrate them to develop a propensity to trust scale. Results of four validation studies suggest that this propensity to trust scale demonstrates strong psychometric properties and is empirically related to other constructs within a theoretically derived nomological network of trust. The consequence is a concise, rigorously developed, and consistently reliable scale of propensity to trust. Scholarly and practical implications are discussed along with several avenues for future research.

Keywords:

• propensity to trust
• scale development
• trust
• trustworthiness

Notes on contributors

M. Lance Frazier is an Assistant Professor of Management in the College of Business and Public Administration at Old Dominion University. His research interests focus on proactive behaviours and the multilevel influences that encourage proactivity at work, including voice climate, trust in the workplace, psychological safety and employee intrinsic motivation. He received his Ph.D. from Oklahoma State University.

Paul D. Johnson, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Management at Western Carolina University in the Department of Global Management & Strategy. His research focuses on a multilevel framework integrating motivation processes, innovation, creativity, performance management, employee empowerment and entrepreneurial psychology. He received his Ph.D. from Oklahoma State University.

Stav Fainshmidt is a PhD student in strategic management at Old Dominion University. His primary research interests are upper echelons and corporate governance, cross-national institutional environments, dynamic capabilities and organisational behaviour. Prior to his PhD studies, Stav worked at Deloitte (ISR.) as a senior auditor.

Notes

1. Our search in Google Scholar and Social Sciences Citation Index – Web of Science showed that this article was cited 4996 and 1551 times, respectively.

2. Though not reported here for the sake of brevity, we replicated these findings with data from Study 3 and obtained similar results. These findings provide further empirical evidence that propensity to trust's role in this relationship may be better seen as an antecedent to trustworthiness, as opposed to influencing trust alongside trustworthiness. This analysis is available from the first author on request