BLOC 1: Presentació i avaluació inicial

3.2.2.1. Communication

According to Lount (2010), trust is defined as the willingness of involved parties to cooperate and coordinate their efforts to reach their expected outcomes. Trust grows over time and in an international environment for instance, international managers and home- based employees learn how to interacting together (Figure 3.2:2) and without communication as Stephens and Rains (2011) pointed out, these repeated interactions will not take place.

In terms of communication and its relation to organisational trust, it is anticipated that managing employees using effective communication would create a trusting relationship

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between managers and employees. The interaction of the top management team, middle and low managers is central to effective communication which reflects on how efficiently information circulates between them and therefore relevant to trust building (Raes et al., 2011; Zhou, 2013). Communication may take place face to face, by phone, through written communication and so on, and these channels depend on the environment where it is set. Examples of various channels of communication are cited in Chapter 2 about the Malaysian style and the Chinese and Arab style as explored by Hutchings and Weir (2006) and Abu Bakar and Mustafa (2013). It may be formal such as through scheduled meetings with fixed agendas and protocols, informal through phone calls or spontaneous meetings in the organisation or before meetings (Raes et al., 2011). Therefore, building trust within such environment is largely a matter of actions and interactions between organisational actors.

Figure 3.2:2 Role of Communication in Building Trust over Time

3.2.2.2. National Culture

Analysing the role of national culture in this context will reflect on how fast or slow trust is built between employees and managers over time. There is a particular focus on Hofstede dimensions in relation to employees coming from Western-Arab cultures working in an international environment (these dimensions were defined and discussed

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in details in Chapter 2). For instance, Hofstede “masculinity/femininity” dimension identifies individuals in masculine groups as opportunists and assertive where they are more likely to be careful in trusting others because there is a belief that they will be exploited by the person they put their trust on (Goel et al., 2005). Similar to the collectivist values where the more encouraged and recognised employees are, the more valued they will feel which increases the likelihood of building trust. Another example from Hofstede’s dimensions (2001) is how individuals deal with the unknown and in terms of trust, Goel et al. (2005) related individuals with low uncertainty avoidance to the group of people who can accept uncertainty and accept things as they come. Here it shows their ability of dealing with different groups as long as it serves their interest. This classifies them as less likely to build long relationships or build trust quickly than in high uncertainty avoidant individuals who tend to create a secure environment supported by traditions and rules as prevention from the future.

As shown in Figure 3.2:3, this is also related to nationality and how this construct can be significant in building trust. Simons et al. (2007) observed that employees belonging to the same demographic group are more likely to be reticent in dealing with other employees from a different demographic group. Using the same concept, nationality is therefore expected to influence the relationship between managers and their subordinates which consequently affect how trust is perceived by them in an international context. Thus, it is anticipated that Arab employees will be more open with their Arab managers and show more willingness to trust them.

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Figure 3.2:3 Effect of National Culture on Building Trust over Time

Therefore, the research questions with regards to these two constructs are:

- What are the elements that measure trust in a Moroccan-International work environment?

3.2.3. Organisational Structure

The literature did not shed the light on the factors that managers consider in building trust in the case of international companies in the Arab World. The same applies to these companies organisational structure and its impact on organisational trust; where it is assumed that, for instance, centralised (hierarchical) organisations will be less likely to generate trust than in the decentralised (less formal) organisations. This implies the following research question to investigate the impact of organisational structure on organisational trust as shown in Figure 3.2:4:

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Figure 3.2:4 Role of Organisational Structure in Building Trust over Time

- What is the employees’ perception of organisational trust taking into consideration employees from different organisational levels: from top management, middle management and subordinates’ levels in international companies operating in Morocco?

3.2.4. Time

This framework reflects three patterns related to the national culture: the organisational communication and organisational structure. These patterns identify key research questions to understand employees’ reactions and interpretations of perceived fairness, behavioural integrity and openness at several organisational levels using different communicational channels. Trust takes time to develop especially that all these constructs could increase/decrease over time depending on the outcome of these constructs’ interactions (Holt and DeVore, 2005; Schoorman et al., 2007). Thus, the variable of time is not to be neglected in building these elements given that employees at different organisational levels need time to develop relationship with others for trust to occur (Kannan-Narasimhan and Lawrence, 2012). Therefore, the construct of time will be linked to all the found constructs in relation to trust as in Figure 3.1:1.

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- To what extent organisational trust affect, if applicable, a better use of management practices in this specific setting over time?

- After exploring the process of trust and identifying key foundations, what are the characteristics that define Arab Management Practices in Morocco during this process?