Team Trust Divergence: Examining its Trajectory and Implications on Team Effectiveness

Ph.D. Candidate Natalie Shin of Management Department will be defending her dissertation proposal titled, “Team Trust Divergence: Examining its Trajectory and Implications on Team Effectiveness” on 06/08/2021.

The time and location of her dissertation defense is 5:00 PM (via Zoom)

Many thanks to Natalie Shin’s dissertation committee: • Committee Chair – Lauren D’Innocenzo – Associate Professor – Drexel University • Committee Member: Daan van Knippenberg - Joseph F. Rocereto Professor – Drexel University • Committee Member Jonathan Ziegert – Associate Professor- Drexel University • Committee Member: Bart De Jong - Associate Professor – Australian Catholic University • Committee Member: John Medaglia - Assistant Professor – Drexel University

Abstract: Team trust, conceptualized as aggregate perceptions of trust among team members, is often studied as static and shared property of a team. However, theory suggests that trust develops (or declines) as teams proceed and it is not always a shared perception within the team. In particular, studies show that dispersion in team trust is pervasive and is equally relevant and important as team trust convergence. In this dissertation, I sought to address these assumptions by examining how team trust changes over time and team compositional factors that drive team trust divergence. Utilizing the social categorization perspective and social exchange theory, I propose that cultural diversity is positively related to initial team trust divergence and negatively related to initial team trust magnitude. Furthermore, I suggest that achievement-conscientiousness diversity influences team trust changes over time and team trust divergence and the magnitude of the trajectory have implications for team performance. I also examined the interactive effect of cultural diversity and achievement-conscientiousness diversity on team performance. To test my hypotheses, I collected longitudinal data from 79 newly formed student teams working on a term project. Notably, I found that achievement-conscientiousness diversity was positively related to team trust divergence over time. Supplemental analyses revealed that cultural diversity had a similar effect in that teams with higher cultural diversity had increasing team trust divergence over time. The increasing trust divergence as well as decreasing mean trust level were found to damage team dynamics such as team cohesion and satisfaction. Taken together, the research contributes to our understanding of team trust as a dynamic process and diversity factors having a lasting impact on team trust divergence over time.