– Integrating the literature on trust building and cultural intelligence, the purpose of this paper is to understand how expatriate managers build trust with their host country nationals (HCNs) in China.
– Qualitative data collected via extensive interviews with 12 expatriate managers and 34 HCNs from seven multinational companies in Shanghai.
– The authors find that expatriate managers and HCN managers build trust via competence/ability at the onset. The trust relationship becomes stronger over time with the development of affect-based trust via cultural intelligence of the expatriate managers.
– Implications for theory and practice following the results are discussed.
– This study used the cultural intelligence perspective to understand the trust building process. In addition this study interviewed both sides to the trust dyad; the expatriate manager and the HCN manager. Hence, it provides perspectives from both sides of the trust building process, one of the first studies to do so.
