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ABSTRACT
Teamwork is a growing part of management education. One aspect of ensuring a successful team experience as part of the educational process involves the formation of trust between teammates. We present the results of an experiment that examines how students form initial trust under two general conditions-when selecting teammates to complete class assignments (task context) and when selecting teammates to forge new relationships (relationship context). The findings indicate that the factors that result in trust are weighted differently, depending on the purpose of the teams. Teams that are focused on completion of a task weighed prospective team members' ability the most, while teams that were focused on forming friendships focused on the prospective team members' integrity. We present specific recommendations and an exercise that MIS instructors can use to encourage trust formation in their teams.
Keywords: Trust, Trustworthiness, Student Teams, Experiments, Repeated Measures Design
1. INTRODUCTION
Trust has become a major focus of researchers in the areas of management (Butler 1991), marketing (Doney et al. 1997), information systems (Jarvenpaa et al. 1999), organizational behavior (Mayer et al. 1995), and psychology [Rotter, 1971 #151]. Within a business environment, trust has been found to increase managerial delegation and employee performance (Mayer et al. 1995), as well as facilitate greater organizational citizenship on the part of employees, which can provide positive benefits for the organization. Trust has also been found to be a critical element in the formation and effectiveness of teams within the workplace.
Trust also provides benefits in team-based, academic environments (Huff et al. 2002). Trust allows students to remain focused on the problem, since teams that lack trust require additional monitoring by their members. Collaboration may also increase, since team members that trust each other are more likely to sacrifice personal objectives for the collective good of the team (Larson et al. 1989). Overall, the potential benefits that educators see in the use of teams may, to a large extent, depend on the trust that facilitates successful teamwork.
The factors that encourage the formation of trust in teammates may differ, however, depending on the context in which the trust is occurring. As an example, the formation of trust in a business environment may be different than trust formed in close personal relationships. While...