信任之下,其效何如——来自Meta分析的证据

How Does Trust Affect Performance? Evidence from a Meta-analytic Review of Literature

通过对包含586个效应值、110576个独立样本、总样本量达126819个的238个独立实证研究的梳理以及Met a分析,本研究回答了"信任之下,其效何如"、"在不同层次,信任与绩效的关系是否存在同一性"、"垂直距离对信任与绩效的关系有何影响"这三个在以往研究中并未得到解答的重要问题,并获得了阶段性定论:信任能显著地促进绩效。在组织内,信任对团队绩效的促进作用尤为突出,而在组织间,信任对组织绩效同样有较强的促进作用;二者关系存在同一性,即在个体、团队和组织不同层次,信任对关系类、创新类、任务类绩效的促进作用均依次变弱;信任双方的垂直距离越小,信任对绩效促进作用越强;此外,出版属性、测量工具以及同源偏差程度均能显著调节信任与绩效之间的关系,地区文化基本能调节,这四个变量的调节方向在不同层次高度一致。而且,测量工具的测量维度越多,信度越高,使用越广泛,信任与绩效之间的相关性越强。鉴于任务类结果变量在现阶段的管理实践中仍占据主导地位,而信任对管理者重点关切的任务类绩效的促进作用并不是非常有效,信任在管理实践中的效用因而需要引起警惕。

In recent years, the lack of trust is becoming an outstanding problem of organizations with the implementation of management innovation and organizational change. Trust catches our attention because it has an important impact on work performance and behavior outcomes. Therefore, it is quite urgent to identify the relationship between organizational trust and performance in management practice. At the same time, with more and more researches focused on the relationship between trust and performance of different levels and types, making a periodic conclusion also becomes possible in management academic research. The previous meta researches either are lack of timeliness or pay much attention to trust and performance of specific level or type. This article aims to capture the rule between trust and performance at different levels by conducting a meta-analysis review consisting of 238 independent empirical studies, 586 effect sizes, 110576 independent samples and a total sum sample size of 126819. It may answer the following three unanswered important questions in previous articles including how does trust affect performance, whether the effects of trust on performance at different levels are the same and how does vertical distance affect the relationship between trust and performance. We can make a periodic conclusion that trust can significantly promote performance. Specifically, trust not only has stronger positive correlation with team performance than individual and organizational one inside organizations but also promotes organizational performance strongly outside organizations. Identity exits in the effects of trust on performance at different levels. Trust has stronger positive correlation with performance of contextual type than performance of innovative type than performance of task type at different levels. Promotion effect of trust on performance strengthens when the vertical distance between trustors and trustees turns smaller. In addition, publication status, measurement tool and common method variance can significantly moderate the relationship between trust and performance. However, regional culture can only basically moderate the relationship between trust and performance. Moderating direction of the above variables is highly consistent. Furthermore, the more dimensions, higher reliability and wider use of measurement tools, the stronger the correlation. Attention should be paid to the effectiveness of using trust in management practice at this stage, as outcome variables of task type still dominates the management practice but trust is unable to most effectively promote performance of task type, which is mainly focused on by managers.