Socialization and Trust in Work Groups
- 25 July 2002
- journal article
- research article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Group Processes & Intergroup Relations
- Vol. 5 (3), 185-201
- https://doi.org/10.1177/1368430202005003001
Abstract
Several theoretical analyses of trust in organizations have been offered, but the social context in which that trust operates is often ignored. Our analysis examines trust in work groups, with a focus on changes in such groups over time. Socialization is an important form of temporal change in work groups (Moreland & Levine, 2000). Workers move into and out of these groups over time, so most groups contain people in different membership phases. We are intrigued by the issues of trust that can arise for full members of groups with new or marginal members. One such issue is how much a group’s full members can trust its new and marginal members, who belong to the group, but are not fully accepted by it. A related issue is how much full members can trust each other around any new or marginal members, whose thoughts, feelings, and behavior must be carefully monitored and shaped before they gain (or regain) the group’s acceptance. After analyzing both of these issues in some detail, we close by identifying several other issues of trust that can arise in work groups as they change over time.Keywords
This publication has 63 references indexed in Scilit:
- Pro-norm and anti-norm deviance within and between groups.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2000
- Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work TeamsAdministrative Science Quarterly, 1999
- “Forgive Me, I'm New”: Three Experimental Demonstrations of the Effects of Attempts to Excuse Poor PerformanceOrganizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 1996
- The Multidimensional View of Commitment and the Theory of Reasoned Action: A Comparative EvaluationJournal of Management, 1995
- An activity‐based theory of communication networks in organizations, applied to the case of a local churchCommunication Monographs, 1995
- Dispositional Group Loyalty and Individual Action for the Benefit of an Ingroup: Experimental and Correlational EvidenceOrganizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 1994
- Multiple commitments at work and extrarole behavior during three stages of organizational tenureJournal of Business Research, 1993
- Desertion As Localism: Army Unit Solidarity and Group Norms in the U.S. Civil WarSocial Forces, 1991
- Effects of prior group memberships on subsequent reconnaissance activities.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1986
- Social categorization and the assimilation of "new" group members.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1985