{"title":"Be yourself or adapt yourself? Authenticity, self-monitoring, behavioural integrity, and trust","authors":"Brenda Nguyen, H. Leroy, C. Gill, T. Simons","doi":"10.1080/21515581.2022.2093211","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Prior work has offered good arguments to trust both authentic and self-monitoring individuals, yet these two constructs have been described as incompatible and even opposite. This tension raises the question of which strategy will best build trust: Be yourself or adapt yourself? Informed by theory on private and public selves at work, this paper argues that both self-monitoring and authenticity behaviours foster trust, but only when not accompanied by the other behaviour. While actors can combine authenticity and self-monitoring in their self-concept, observers see this combination as lacking behavioural integrity (i.e. word-deed misalignment), thus reducing trust. We test these relationships in a time-lagged, multi-source survey study with project teams. Our results support the hypothesis and demonstrate that behavioural integrity mediates the interaction between authenticity and self-monitoring on perceptions of trust. We discuss the implications of our findings for the development and implementation of effective trust-building strategies.","PeriodicalId":44602,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Trust Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.9000,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"1","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Trust Research","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/21515581.2022.2093211","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"MANAGEMENT","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 1
Abstract
Prior work has offered good arguments to trust both authentic and self-monitoring individuals, yet these two constructs have been described as incompatible and even opposite. This tension raises the question of which strategy will best build trust: Be yourself or adapt yourself? Informed by theory on private and public selves at work, this paper argues that both self-monitoring and authenticity behaviours foster trust, but only when not accompanied by the other behaviour. While actors can combine authenticity and self-monitoring in their self-concept, observers see this combination as lacking behavioural integrity (i.e. word-deed misalignment), thus reducing trust. We test these relationships in a time-lagged, multi-source survey study with project teams. Our results support the hypothesis and demonstrate that behavioural integrity mediates the interaction between authenticity and self-monitoring on perceptions of trust. We discuss the implications of our findings for the development and implementation of effective trust-building strategies.
期刊介绍:
As an inter-disciplinary and cross-cultural journal dedicated to advancing a cross-level, context-rich, process-oriented, and practice-relevant journal, JTR provides a focal point for an open dialogue and debate between diverse researchers, thus enhancing the understanding of trust in general and trust-related management in particular, especially in its organizational and social context in the broadest sense. Through both theoretical development and empirical investigation, JTR seeks to open the "black-box" of trust in various contexts.