Principal speaker
Professor Mark Saunders
Abstract: This seminar explores the potential for employee trust and distrust to co-exist. Two interrelated questions are considered: firstly, whether trust and distrust judgements are symmetrical or might they can occur simultaneously and, secondly, whether trust and distrust judgements entail the same or conceptually different expectations as revealed in expressions and anticipated manifestations. Data were collected from two case-study organisations using a concurrent mixed-methods design incorporating a structured card sort and in-depth interviews. Card sort findings offer little support for the co-existence of trust and distrust, but suggest they could be separate constructs. Interview data indicates participants do perceive trust and distrust as entailing different sets of expectations and having different for the manifestations, providing some support for the ‘separate constructs’ thesis. Evidence is offered for two new combinations of levels of trust and distrust not previously specified in the debate. The implications of findings for theory and for organisations are explored.
Speaker: Mark Saunders is Professor of Business Research Methods and Director of Postgraduate Research Programmes at the Surrey Business School, UK. His interests focus on research methods, including online research methods; methods for researching trust; the development of process consultation tools to learn about and improve organisational relationships; and the human resource aspects of management of change, particularly with trust and justice. He has published in a range of journals including Field Methods, Journal of Personnel Psychology, Journal of Small Business Management and Management Learning. His recent books include Research Methods for Business Students (2012, Pearson), (with Phil Lewis and Adrian Thornhill); and the Handbook of Research Methods on Trust (2012, Edward Elgar) co-edited with Fergus Lyon and Guido Möllering; and Organizational Trust: A Cultural Perspective (2010, CUP) co-edited with Denise Skinner, Nicole Gillespie, Graham Dietz and Roy Lewicki.
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RSVP
RSVP on or before Wednesday 6 March 2013 , by email wow@griffith.edu.au , or by phone 373 53714