Should I stay or should I go?: the role of trust and risk in determining behavior in an IS development team

ABSTRACT

This research extends the Mayer, Davis & Schoorman (1995) model of interpersonal trust to examine the evolution of trust between teams. Risk-taking actions by teams were found to predict the evolution of trust over time. Using a controlled setting to reduce the impact of extraneous variables and a cross-source design to collect data, we studied reciprocal trust between managers and developers, specifically examining whether trusting behaviors exhibited by one team influence perceptions of that team's trustworthiness held by an interdependent team. Findings indicate that ability, benevolence and integrity are stable predictors of trust in this interteam context. Further, trust was found to significantly influence teams' risk-taking behaviors. Finally, risk-taking behaviors by one team were found to have a reciprocal effect on perceptions of trustworthiness by the interdependent team.

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INDEX TERMS

General Terms:
Human Factors, Management, Performance

Keywords:
propensity to trust, trust