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Trust: A Neglected Variable in Team Effectiveness Research

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 September 2015

Sandra Kiffin-Petersen
Sandra Kiffin-Petersen*
Affiliation:
The Graduate School of Management, University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, CRAWLEY 6009, AUSTRALIA Phone: +61 8 9380 3070, Fax: + 61 8 9380 1055, Email: skiffin@ecel. uwa.edu.au
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Abstract

Trust is frequently espoused as being critical to effective team processes and performance. Yet, few studies have investigated the relationship between trust and team processes, or team effectiveness. There is currently a need to locate propensity to trust (a personality composition variable) and intragroup trust (an emergent state) within mainstream team effectiveness models, not only to provide much-needed theoretical and empirical support for trust's central role in team effectiveness, but also to increase our understanding of how trust influences team effectiveness. This paper argues that trust is a neglected variable within team effectiveness research that requires further empirical investigation.

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Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Management & Organization , Volume 10 , Issue 1 , January 2004, pp. 38 - 53
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press and Australian and New Zealand Academy of Management 2004

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