Paper info

Trust if you dare: a cross-cultural examination of the trust construct.

Peter J. Batt

The paper was published at the 20th IMP-conference in Copenhagen, Denmark in 2004.

Empirical evidence is presented which suggests that trust is more important infacilitating exchange in transitional economies than industrial economies. Furthermore,the various item measures that have been employed to evaluate trust in Europe, NorthAmerica and Australia, fail to accurately describe the construct among small farmers inthe transitional economies. Further studies are necessary to develop a more robustmeasure of trust in the context of the transitional economies where social capital is morelikely to play a much greater role in facilitating exchange.