Development and Validation of the Corporate Distrust Scale

by Adams, Jason E.

Previous organizational research on trust and distrust has focused mainly on interpersonal relationships such as trust of managers or coworkers, however little is known about institutionallevel attitudes, such as corporate trust/distrust. The purpose of the current study was to develop a measure to evaluate attitudes of distrust people have toward corporations. Evidence for the construct validity of the new measure was obtained sampling a broad cross-section of working adults. Psychometric properties of the measure suggested high internal consistency and a unidimensional factor structure. Nomological validity of the construct in relation to other measures provided further support for the construct validity of the measure. Future applications of the measure in behavioral research are discussed.