Building Team Trust: A Study in the Asian Context

Numerous scholars have concentrated on the influences of team trust in team cooperation and performance. However, there is a lack of studies which explore the relationship between team trust and team performance in the virtual setting. The issue of whether team trust influences team effectiveness differently between conventional and virtual teams has rarely been discussed. The purpose of this paper aims to address this gap in the literature by investigating team trust in both conventional and virtual teamwork, in order to seek an understanding of effective methods for building team trust in these working environments. Findings from this study show that building interpersonal trust between team members is important to improve the team effectiveness of conventional teams. But developing institutional trust within a team is essential for virtual teamwork. An understanding of how to build team trust in different working environments can help businesses to increase the operational efficiency.