Open Access

Jörg BüechlORCiD, Markus Pudelko

• Our explorative, qualitative study explores the dynamic processes of Chinese subordinates developing trust (or not) in their (culturally distinct) German supervisors. It is based on 95 interviews with Chinese subordinates of German supervisors and German supervisors of Chinese subordinates both in China and in Germany. Overall, our study contributes next to trust and cross-cultural management research to the examination of the juxtaposition of Western and Eastern management concepts and ultimately to the debate whether trust is a universalistic concept or one that is characterized by cultural particularities. On the basis of our data, we propose a trust development process model, which (1) illustrates three phases of trust development (the high trust contact phase, the low trust disillusion phase and trust bifurcation in the acculturation phase); (2) explicates why and with the help of which moderating contextual factors trust ultimately is either re-established or permanently eroded and why there appears to be little graduation in between; and (3) uncovers for our cross-cultural setting even for interpersonal subordinate-supervisor dyads the relevance of collective trust.