J. Jason Berman

A cross‐cultural study of coworker trust

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between an employees trust of coworkers and that employees enterprising behavior. The extent to which cultural dimensions, in‐group collectivism and power distance, moderate the trust‐behavior relationship is considered.Design/methodology/approach – A rigorous research methodology was employed to minimize potential problems with common method variance. Trust ratings were provided by 135 US, 203 Turkish, 100 Polish, and 86 Russian focal employees. Their 524 coworkers provided enterprising behavior ratings for these focal employees.Findings – The results show that both cognitive‐ and affect‐based trusts of coworkers is associated with enterprising behavior. The findings also indicate that the affect‐based trust/enterprising behavior relationship is stronger in higher power distance cultures than in lower power distance cultures. In‐group collectivism, however, does not moderate the trust enterprising behavior relationships.Originality/valu...

A study of Russian, Polish, and U.S. self and peer raters: Moderators of rating agreement

This study investigates one aspect of the multi‐source feedback process: the agreement between self‐ratings and coworker ratings of workplace behavior. Moderators of rating agreement (i.e., number of years that the coworker had known the employee, trustworthiness of the employee, and country status) are carefully examined. Eighty‐six Russian employee‐coworker dyads, 99 Polish dyads, and 95 U.S. dyads from more than 225 organizations participated. Regression results indicate that rating agreement was higher when the Polish and U.S. coworker knew the target employee a shorter period of time and when the Polish, Russian, and U.S. target employee was considered trustworthy.

The significance of direct-leader and co-worker trust on turnover intentions: A cross-cultural study

This study examines the relative strength of the relationships of an employees affect-based and cognition-based trust of their direct leader and co-workers to the employees turnover intentions in four countries. Surveys were completed by 554 participants; the sample consisted of 81 Russians, 113 Poles, 155 Americans and 205 Turks. It was found that the employees affect-based trust of their direct leader was more strongly associated (negatively) with turnover intentions than was the employees affect-based trust of their co-workers for our combined international sample; however, the association of cognition-based trust of the direct leader and cognition-based trust of their co-workers to turnover intentions did not differ. This study looked at the moderating effect of culture. We found that in-group collectivism moderated the relationship of both affect-based trust of co-workers and cognition-based trust of co-workers to turnover intentions.

What Do We Really Believe about Career Development

Harold L. Munson is Professor and Chairman, Center for the Study of Helping Services, Graduate School of Education and Human Development, University of Rocltester; J. Jason Berman is Instructor, Department of Management, St. John Fisher College; and George E. Towner is a Doctoral Candidate, Center for the Study of Helping Services, Graduate School of Education and Human Development, Universi ty of Rochester. Some years ago, Super (1957) called attention to career development as a significant aspect of human development.