The Effect of Trust on Personal Web Usage in the Workplace

This chapter addresses the concept and importance of interpersonal trust through the use of the Internet in an organizational setting. In particular, personal Web usage is explored by examining employee interpersonal trust. Personal Web use refers to an employee’s utilization of the Internet for non-job related activities within a work environment. Examples of personal Web use include online banking, participating in instant messaging or chat sessions, buying goods or services, and any other activity in which the Internet is accessed for non-work-related tasks. A discussion regarding the importance of trust, its nature, and strategies for building interpersonal 701 E. Chocolate Avenue, Suite 200, Hershey PA 17033, USA Tel: 717/533-8845; Fax 717/533-8661; URL-http://www.idea-group.com INFORMATION SCIENCE PUBLISHING This chapter appears in the book, Personal Web Usage in the Workplace: A Guide to Effective Human Resources Management, edited by Murugan Anandarajan. Copyright © 2004, Idea Group Publishing. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited. trust in an organizational setting are offered. Generalized guidelines for organizational practice and recommendations to support a culture of trust within the work environment are presented. This chapter addresses the notion of trust through personal Web usage as a human resource management issue. WHY IS TRUST IMPORTANT? Trust is important in organizations due to the potential economic savings derived from increasing trust between individuals (Williamson, 1975). There is an inverse relationship between transaction costs and trust, such that as trust increases, costs decrease (Bromiley & Cummings, 1995). Transaction costs are expenditures for controlling, monitoring, and processing work-related activities. Processing costs, a subset of transaction costs, include the extrinsic and intrinsic costs of doing business, both in staff and line functions. By developing trust, a company can benefit through lower processing costs — a bottom-line outcome. Trust, as defined in this section, is the “individual’s belief or a common belief among a group of individuals that another individual or group: (1) makes good-faith efforts to behave in accordance with any commitments both implicit and explicit; (2) is honest in whatever negotiation preceded the commitments; and (3) does not take excessive advantage of another even when the opportunity is available” (Cummings & Bromiley, 1996, p. 303). Trust is the ‘glue’ that holds everything in society together (Luhmann, 1979) and is an important element of human relations (Larzelere & Huston, 1980). Trust is central to transactions (Dasgupta, 1988), because without trust, we are frequently immobilized through an inability to make a prediction or fulfill expectations. Trust can be used as an indicator of individual, group, organizational, or cultural health since the entity of trust can be a person, place, event, or object (Giffin, 1967). Trust can exist between individuals and organizations (Zaheer, McEvily, & Perrone, 1998), between organizations (Gulati, 1995), between users and information technology (Lippert, 2001), as a general characteristic of different societies (Fukuyama, 1995), or as an interpersonal exchange between individuals (Mayer, Davis, & Schoorman, 1995). In organizations with high levels of trust, productivity consistently exceeds other businesses where trust is low or latent (Sitkin & Stickel, 1995; Davis, Mayer, & Schoorman, 1995). Trust is a measure of the effective interaction between individuals. The development of interpersonal trust relationships is 29 more pages are available in the full version of this document, which may be purchased using the "Add to Cart" button on the product's webpage: www.igi-global.com/chapter/effect-trust-personal-webusage/28057?camid=4v1 This title is available in InfoSci-Books, InfoSci-Social Technologies, Business-Technology-Solution, Business, Administration, and Management, InfoSci-Select, InfoSciBusiness and Management Information Science and Technology. Recommend this product to your librarian: www.igi-global.com/e-resources/libraryrecommendation/?id=1