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Understanding General Distrust of Corporations

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Abstract

Organizational research on trust and distrust has focused mainly on interpersonal relationships within organizations or impressions people have about specific companies. Less is known about people's attitudes toward all corporations (ie, as institutions). This article describes a theory of distrust toward corporations, how this attitude forms and how its study can contribute to organizational research. A corporate distrust scale was developed and shown to have favorable psychometric properties and nomological validity. People who scored higher on corporate distrust were higher on general cynicism, organization-specific cynicism, negative affectivity and liberal political attitudes. Corporate distrust correlated negatively with interpersonal trust, positive attitudes toward human nature and belief in a just world. The article suggests that the construct can be used in future research on beliefs about the corporate world.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH, USA

    Jason E Adams, Scott Highhouse & Michael J Zickar

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  1. Jason E Adams
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  2. Scott Highhouse
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  3. Michael J Zickar
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Appendix

Appendix

Corporate Distrust Scale

Please choose the answer that best describes your present agreement or disagreement with each statement using the following scale:

Strongly disagree=1

Disagree=2

Neither agree or disagree=3

Agree=4

Strongly agree=5

  1. 1

    Corporations are not respectful of laws.

  2. 2

    Corporations do not accept accountability for their actions.

  3. 3

    People who run corporations will lie if doing so will increase company profits.

  4. 4

    Corporations do not care about acting ethically.

  5. 5

    Corporations will break laws if they can make more money from it.

  6. 6

    Corporations put their own interests above the public's interests.

  7. 7

    Corporations are driven by greed.

  8. 8

    Corporations care only about money.

  9. 9

    Corporations want power at any cost.

  10. 10

    Corporations take a lot more than they give.

  11. 11

    Corporations intentionally deceive the public.

  12. 12

    Corporations do not consider the needs of their employees when making business decisions.

  13. 13

    Corporations exploit their workers.

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Adams, J., Highhouse, S. & Zickar, M. Understanding General Distrust of Corporations. Corp Reputation Rev 13, 38–51 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1057/crr.2010.6

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