Measuring team trust: A critical and meta‐analytical review

• Author: Eduardo Salas,William S. Kramer,Jennifer Feitosa,Rebecca Grossman
• Date: 01 June 2020
• Published date: 01 June 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/job.2436

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Measuring team trust: A critical and meta-analytical review

Jennifer Feitosa

1

| Rebecca Grossman

2

| William S. Kramer

3

| Eduardo Salas

4

1

Department of Psychology, Claremont

McKenna College, Claremont, California

2

Department of Psychology, Hofstra

University, Hempstead, New York

3

Department of Psychology, University of

Nebraska Omaha, Omaha, Nebraska

4

Department of Psychology, Rice University,

Houston, Texas

Correspondence

Jennifer Feitosa, Department of Psychology,

Claremont McKenna College, 850 Columbia

Ave, Claremont, CA 91711.

Email: jfeitosa@cmc.edu

Funding information

National Center for Advancing Translational

Sciences, Grant/Award Number: UL1

TR003167

Summary

Team trust is gaining attention in research and practice due to its benefits for team

performance, yet clarity about the intricacies of its measurement is needed.

Therefore, we meta-analyzed 118 studies (N= 7,738) to untangle the role of

measurement features by investigating the degree to which they influence the trust–

performance relationship. Results showed that the trust–performance relationship is

contingent upon time lag and source of measurement. Specifically, cross-sectional

and single-source studies produced higher effect sizes than time-lagged and

different-source studies. In contrast, the moderating roles of conceptualization–

operationalization alignment and referent of trust measures were not supported. Post

hoc analyses revealed that affective trust is more strongly related to global, versus

specific team outcomes, and that mixed-referent items are particularly effective

within intact teams, whereas the trust–performance relationship is constrained when

direct consensus items are used within ad hoc teams. Furthermore, we provided a

critical review that highlights the importance of composites, multilevel forces, and

item content and wording. Finally, we clarified key gaps in the literature, calling for

research where needed. This review serves as a bridge between conceptualization

and measurement and lays the groundwork for advancing knowledge of team trust.

KEYWORDS

trust, teams, measurement, meta-analysis

1|INTRODUCTION

Trust is gaining attention in research and practice for its benefits

to both teams and organizations (Costa, Fulmer, & Anderson, 2017).

Peterson and Kaplan (2016) recently developed the laws of trust that

must be followed for organizations to be successful, claiming trust is

the glue that holds employees together. In agreement with this claim,

Ross (2006) explains that trust is the critical element that will permit

the proper functioning of modern teams, such as those relying on vir-

tual tools. This emphasis on trust in the workplace, especially team

trust, is illustrated with recent efforts to improve the understanding

of this construct through both theoretical (e.g., Costa et al., 2017;

Grossman & Feitosa, 2018) and empirical reviews (e.g., Breuer,

Hüffmeier, & Hertel, 2016; De Jong, Dirks, & Gillespie, 2016).

Although these reviews point to a notable link between team trust

and team performance, additional clarity is needed about how to best

measure team trust before important conclusions can be drawn, and

diagnostic and intervention efforts can be put into practice with full

confidence.

More specifically, trust has been conceptualized and measured

numerous ways, making it difficult to draw sound comparisons across

studies or identify what each is capturing conceptually. Indeed, our

review of the trust literature revealed that researchers have used

46 different measures to assess various conceptualizations of trust.

Although some have started to shed light on how team trust should

be defined (Fulmer & Gelfand, 2012) and have provided reviews of

these measures (McEvily & Tortoriello, 2011), little has been done to

assess the extent to which differences in team trust measurement

impact the trust–performance relationship. It is possible that the team

trust–performance relationship may not emerge entirely through key

team dynamics but, to some extent, through artifacts of varying mea-

surement approaches (Schmidt, Le, & Ilies, 2003). For example, due to

Received: 6 September 2018 Revised: 10 February 2020 Accepted: 16 February 2020

DOI: 10.1002/job.2436

J Organ Behav. 2020;41:479–501. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/job © 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 479

a lack of construct validity in some team trust measures, they may

include performance-related items (e.g., my team members are well

aware of whether I perform as expected) that could inflate the rela-

tionship between these constructs. As such, understanding the role of

measurement idiosyncrasies is imperative for furthering knowledge of

the trust–performance relationship.

Therefore, in this paper, we provide a systematic review that

seeks to untangle the role of measurement features in shaping the

team trust-team performance relationship. In particular, this review

is threefold with the overarching goal of integrating various concep-

tualizations and operationalizations of team trust in past research

and providing insights to guide future research and practice (see

Figure 1). First, we use meta-analysis to investigate the extent to

which measurement artifacts might serve as moderators of the team

trust–performance relationship. Second, we critically review the cur-

rent state of team trust measurement by comparing and contrasting

the criterion validities of team trust scales, based on their measure-

ment features and the domain of team trust they capture. Third, we

identify and organize future research needs to shape the team trust

research agenda moving forward. Although two recent meta-

analyses (Breuer et al., 2016; de Jong et al., 2016) have been con-

ducted on team trust, our research serves to advance the literature

because neither have focused on measurement, thus providing a

foundation of empirically driven knowledge of psychological con-

structs (Schultz & Whitney, 2005).

2|THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

Although recent work has started to accumulate evidence towards

the importance of team trust, underlying this construct is a wide

range of conceptualizations and operationalizations. Accordingly,

researchers have called for more clarity regarding what team trust

really is and its impact on outcomes (e.g., Palanski, Kahai, &

Yammarino, 2011), including more precision surrounding the measure-

ment of team trust (Fulmer & Gelfand, 2012).

2.1 |The concept of trust at the team-level

One of the most widely known definitions of trust is the “willingness

of a party to be vulnerable to the actions of another party based on

the expectation that the other will perform a particular action impor-

tant to the trustor, irrespective of the ability to monitor or control that

party”(Mayer, Davis, & Schoorman, 1995, p. 172). There are two main

components of this definition: positive expectations (i.e., cognitive-

driven) and the willingness to be vulnerable (i.e., affective/attitude-

driven). Extrapolating to the team-level, the former is representative

of an individual expecting that his/her teammates are able to perform

a task appropriately (Butler & Cantrell, 1984), whereas the latter is

associated with an emotional investment and caring for the team-

mates (Erdem & Ozen, 2003). Both types are likely to influence how

members work together, including the monitoring of tasks and back-

up behavior (Barczak, Lassk, & Mulki, 2010).

At the team-level, trust has been found to be a multidimensional

and multilayered construct (Castaldo, Premazzi, & Zerbini, 2010). In a

discussion of trust across organizational levels, Fulmer and Gelfand

(2012) argued that it can reside at different levels of analysis

(i.e., individual, team, and organizational) and that it is critical for

researchers to specify the level at which trust is being conceptualized

and align their definitions with the target conceptualization. Thus,

although we recognize that trust can reside at the individual and

organizational levels, we focus on the conceptualization of trust as a

team-level phenomenon. We therefore draw from a prior definition of

team trust as “a shared psychological state among team members

comprising willingness to accept vulnerability based on positive

expectations of a specific other or others”(Fulmer & Gelfand, 2012,

p. 1174). However, to emphasize the ideas that it takes time for indi-

vidual perceptions of trust to converge as a shared team property and

that trust changes over time, we build on the prior conceptualization

and define team trust as “an emergent and dynamic shared state at

the team-level whereby team members believe in one another's com-

petence and are willing to be vulnerable beyond task-related issues.”

More specifically, this definition calls out the potential for the

FIGURE 1 Illustration of general scope of this team trust review

480 FEITOSA ET AL.