“Making and Breaking” Social Trust in the Workplace: How Job Characteristics Impact the Process of Social Trust Formation among the Employed

This paper argues that job characteristics can influence the patterns of social trust formation. By reviewing key approaches to building trust, we outline four dimensions through which employment properties may impact trust levels among the employed: (1) networks, (2) learning, (3) contexts, and (4) emotions. We use the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) public-use data to operationalise the four dimensions and to link them to social trust scores. Our analysis provides strong empirical evidence that the four dimensions not only relate to trust but also exhibit joint effects on trust levels among employed individuals.