Predictors of Organizational Trust: The Dynamic Relationship Between Organizational Trust, Organizational Identification and Cultural Intelligence

Researchers in the field of business ethics have assumed organizational trust as the connecting puzzle piece between organizational theory and philosophical ethics (Hosmer, 1995). Organizational identification has gained a lot of momentum in the attempt to explain how trust emerges and develops within organizations (Ashforth & Mael 1989). However there is scarce empirical evidence suggesting whether there is an association between organizational trust and organizational identification across multiple organizational levels. Using the framework of social identity theory, this research aims to illustrate the dynamic relationship between trust and identification within organizations and present a model of the predictors of organizational trust. Employing a quantitative research design and using a large student sample (N=222), this study issued cross-sectional surveys to measure organizational trust, organizational identification, team trust, and team identification while controlling for the effects of team size, team type, age, gender and culture. The results of the multiple regression analysis show a significant relationship between the predictors and the outcome variable, organizational trust (r2=.54, p