Organization development and cultural values of trust in international contexts

Namporn Thanetsunthorn
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Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this study is to address the call for empirical research on trust and culture highlighted in the existing literature. This study empirically investigates the underlying cultural values of trust across multiple countries – the term used to describe specific cultural environments that have the potential to influence the way in which people demonstrate trust toward others – and then documents their subsequent influences on the success of organization development (OD) efforts in international contexts. Design/methodology/approach Using data from multiple sources, this study conducts a series of empirical tests to investigate the underlying cultural values of trust in a large sample of 42 countries over the past 20 years (2000–2020). Then, the study further extends the findings to propose an empirically developed framework, namely, a country classification, which can be used to assess whether cultural environments in a specific country appear to support or impede trust behavior and the likelihood of success in implementing OD initiatives and interventions in international contexts. Findings Trust is robustly related to cultural values. Specifically, people from countries with high power distance and uncertainty avoidance cultures tend to exhibit less trust in others, whereas those from countries with high individualistic and long-term oriented cultures are more likely to trust others. The country classification further demonstrates that Estonia, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands are the group of countries whose cultural values appear strongly consistent with the underlying cultural values of trust, implying a greater likelihood of success for OD efforts and interventions. On the other hand, Colombia, Egypt, Iraq, Libya and Mexico are the group of countries whose cultural values appear to differ significantly from the underlying cultural values of trust, suggesting potential obstacles for successful OD efforts and thus appropriate modifications of OD interventions are essentially needed. The results for other countries are also discussed. Practical implications The findings offer several practical implications for the community of OD consulting, especially those who work internationally in cross-national consulting projects or deal with culturally diverse organizations. These include a more sophisticated understanding of the cultural environments that support or impede the willingness to trust in a specific foreign country, an evidence-informed strategy to design or adopt appropriate OD interventions that align with the cultural environments of a foreign country and a framework to assess and improve the likelihood of successful OD interventions in international contexts. Originality/value To the author’s best knowledge, this is the first study to conduct an empirical examination of the influence of culture on trust in a comprehensive manner, subsequently providing a transitional bridge between two major strands of trust research in the current OD literature: trust serves as a necessary foundation for successful OD efforts and the willingness to trust can potentially be explained through cultural spheres. Second, this study explores trust behavior in international contexts and develops a country classification concerning the influence of culture on trust, both of which have never been accomplished in prior research.
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国际背景下的组织发展和信任文化价值观
本研究的目的是回应现有文献中对信任与文化实证研究的呼吁。本研究实证调查了多个国家信任的潜在文化价值——这个术语用来描述特定的文化环境,这些文化环境有可能影响人们向他人展示信任的方式——然后记录了它们对国际背景下组织发展(OD)努力成功的后续影响。设计/方法/方法本研究使用来自多个来源的数据,进行了一系列实证测试,以调查过去20年(2000-2020年)42个国家的大样本中信任的潜在文化价值。然后,该研究进一步扩展了研究结果,提出了一个实证开发的框架,即国家分类,该框架可用于评估特定国家的文化环境是否支持或阻碍信任行为以及在国际背景下实施OD倡议和干预措施的成功可能性。信任与文化价值观密切相关。具体而言,来自高权力距离和不确定性回避文化的国家的人往往对他人表现出较少的信任,而来自高度个人主义和长期导向文化的国家的人更有可能信任他人。国家分类进一步表明,爱沙尼亚、德国、瑞典和荷兰这组国家的文化价值观似乎与信任的基本文化价值观非常一致,这意味着OD的努力和干预措施取得成功的可能性更大。另一方面,哥伦比亚、埃及、伊拉克、利比亚和墨西哥这组国家的文化价值似乎与信任的基本文化价值有很大不同,这表明对成功的宣传工作存在潜在障碍,因此基本上需要适当修改宣传干预措施。对其他国家的结果也进行了讨论。实际意义这些发现为OD咨询界提供了一些实际意义,特别是那些在跨国咨询项目中工作或与文化多样化的组织打交道的人。这些包括对支持或阻碍特定外国信任意愿的文化环境的更复杂的理解,基于证据的策略来设计或采用与外国文化环境相一致的适当的OD干预措施,以及评估和提高国际背景下成功的OD干预可能性的框架。原创性/价值据作者所知,这是第一个全面地对文化对信任的影响进行实证检验的研究,随后在当前OD文献中的两大信任研究分支之间提供了一座过渡桥梁:信任是成功的OD努力的必要基础,信任意愿可以通过文化领域来解释。其次,本研究对国际背景下的信任行为进行了探索,并对文化对信任的影响进行了国家分类,这两个方面在以往的研究中都没有完成。
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来源期刊
CiteScore
6.90
自引率
25.80%
发文量
28
期刊介绍: Review of International Business and Strategy is keen to present contemporary and innovative research that proposes new perspectives or challenges existing theories, and that advances the understanding of issues related to international business and global strategy. Themes covered by the journal include (but are not limited to): Internationalization of firms and international entrepreneurship Effects of international environment (political, social, economic and institutional) on international business activities and firm strategies Knowledge transfer strategies and innovation in MNEs Location strategies in international business activities.
期刊最新文献
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