Intercultural%20trust%20in%20Austria%20and%20Japan

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Intercultural trust in Austria and Japan

• Robert Jiro NETZER
• University of Innsbruck
• Matthias SUTTER
• University of Innsbruck

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Motivation and research question

• Increasing internationalization
• Economic exchange between cultures
• Arrow (1972) An element of trust is within
  every commercial transaction.
• gtDo subjects show different levels of trust and
  reciprocity towards strangers of a foreign
  culture than towards strangers of their own
  culture?
• -gt Intercultural vs. cross-cultural experiments

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Trust game

• Berg et al. (1995)
• Initial endowment E 10 tokens for A B
• A (trustor) decides on transfer x E
• B (trustee) receives 3x
• B decides on return y E3x
• PA(x,y)E-xy and PB(x,y) E3x-y

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Treatments

• 1 intercultural and 2 intracultural treatments
• Intercultural interaction between subjects of
  Austria and Japan
• Intracultural interaction between compatriots in
  Austria and Japan

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Procedure

• Paper and Pen
• Player B strategy method (Selten, 1967)
• Part 1 50 of subjects trustors 50 of
  subjects trustees
• Part 2 role change
• Coin flip determines which part is paid out to
  subjects
• Intercultural treatment in Japan conducted before
  intercultural treatment in Austria -gt data sent
  to experimenters
• Experimenter, language and currency effect (Roth
  et al., 1991)
• Number of participants 150

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Results trustor behavior

• In the intercultural treatment Austrian subjects
  show higher levels of trust than Japanese
  subjects
• Austrians trust Japanese more than compatriots
• Japanese do not differentiate between different
  counterparts

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Results trustee behavior
y gt x
y lt x

• Reciprocity prevalent in all treatments
• Japanese subjects less reciprocal than Austrians

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Results questionnaire (Yamagishi and Yamagishi,
1994 Holm and Danielson, 2004)

• Austrian subjects stated trust level is
  significantly higher than the indicated trust
  level of Japanese subjects
• The level of reciprocity stated by Austrians is
  significantly higher than the indicated level of
  reciprocity of Japanese subjects

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Why Japanese trust less in the intercultural
treatment than Austrians

• Yamagishi (2003)
• Japanese society provides various assurance
  mechanisms which induce people to behave in a
  trustworthy way
• -gt helps to reduce social uncertainty which is
  often seen as trust in Japanese society
• Japanese would expect cooperative behavior only
  within such secure relations
• People from individualist societies would expect
  their partner to cooperate because of their
  higher level of general trust

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Why Austrians trust Japanese more than they trust
Austrians

• Yamagishi and Yamagishi (1994) and Yamagishi
  (2003)
• It is generally believed that collectivist
  preferences and cooperative practices in Japan
  are driven by high levels of general trust
• gtThe good reputation of Japan in Austria can be
  identified as a major driving force for
  Austrians high transfer decisions
• Reputation plays minor role in resolving social
  uncertainty in Japan
• gtIn absence of assurance mechanisms usually
  provided by Japanese society, Japanese subjects
  can neither put trust into Austrians nor into
  Japanese

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Why Japanese behave less reciprocal than Austrians

• Yamagishi and Yamagishi (1994)
• Trustfulness requires trustworthiness
• Individualist societies are more trustful than
  collectivist societies
• Trustworthiness is considered more important in
  individualist than in collectivist societies

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Conclusion

• Depending on the specific culture, there is an
  interplay of culture-specific norms and the
  perception and the reputation of other cultures
  affecting peoples behavior in intercultural
  interactions
• Might cause friction and lead to
  misunderstandings in international trade and
  investment situations

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Thank you for your attention!