Trust: The role of cultural, sectoral and contextual norms in workplace relationships

trustLAB at DCU Institute for Business and Society was delighted to host a European Association of Work and Organisational Psychology Small Group Meeting in Dublin City University Business School on 3-4 September 2026.

Organised by Prof. Lisa van der Werff and Dr. Colette Real, along with co-leads Prof. Deanne Den Hartog (University of Amsterdam) and Prof. Rosalind Searle (University of Glasgow), this meeting explored how cultural, sectoral, and contextual norms can influence how trust is shaped, interpreted, and enacted across different organisational contexts.

Attended by 33 delegates from 6 countries (Ireland, UK., Netherlands, Finland, Turkey, and the US.), research was presented on a variety of topics including trust disruption and violation norms, cultural and social trust norms, trust development norms, and trust vulnerability norms in contemporary contexts.

In the opening keynote on day 1 entitled “Trust and how it erodes (in) the workplace” Prof. Deanne den Hartog shared her work on harmful forms of leadership that relate to trust and discussed how unethical behaviour can shape social dynamics and trust at work. This was followed by an interactive discussion on developing a research agenda in these areas.

The keynote on the day 2, entitled “Insights on Trust and Norms from Research in Various Contexts” was delivered by Prof. Dejun “Tony” Kong (University of Colorado Boulder) and covered a wide variety of trust settings including prosocial reciprocation, interpersonal negotiations, gratitude expressions and feeling appreciated at work, team resilience and crisis responses, and the impact of human resource policies and practices on trust.

In addition to the research focus of the conference, a panel discussion on leader perspectives on trust in different organisational contexts was facilitated by Prof. Finian Buckley. Mike Glennon (Joint Managing Director at Glennon Brothers) shared his experience of building trust while growing a family business in the manufacturing-construction sector. Alastair McMenamin (Consultant, Leadership Advisory Services at Spencer Stuart) talked about leading and managing trust across cultures in large corporate firms, and Shona McManus (CEO and Owner at Osborne Recruitment) shared her experience of developing trust amongst team members when scaling and internationalising her business.

The conference concluded with an update from Prof. Rosalind Searle on the EAWOP Impact incubator programme (EAWopii), followed by round-table discussions on how to ensure research continues to focus on relevant topics that have real impact in practice.

Congratulations to the two best paper award winners. Andreas Cole (University of Amsterdam) won the early career research award for his fascinating presentation about speech rate entrainment and trust in dyadic interactions. Penny Coughlan (DCU) won the societal impact award for her work on trust in the context of workplace polarisation and value incongruence and will collaborate with the EAWOP impact incubator to disseminate her findings. Well done to both!

The local organising team (Lisa van der Werff, Colette Real, and Paulene Yaranon) would like to say a huge thank you to all the participants, contributors, and speakers for making this meeting so engaging and interesting, and to DCU Institute for Business and Society and EAWOP for their support for this meeting.

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