More Trust Increases Value Of Information Technology: Leads to More Corporate Decentralization And Delegation

From Harvard Business School Working Knowledge Newsletter, "The Organization of Firms Across Countries" by Carmen Nobel:

• If a firm is headquartered in a country where trust is prevalent (such as Sweden), it is much more likely to decentralize its decision making than if it is headquartered in a country in which trust is rarer (such as India). In short, higher trust leads to more decentralization.
  
  
• Trust also enables a firm to hire a large number of plant managers, because the CEO will feel comfortable delegating decisions to their direct reports without spending too much time on supervision. Thus, higher trust increases firm size.
  
  
• Higher trust increases the marginal value of information technology's effect on productivity.

Full research paper, "The Organization of Firms Across Countries" by Nicholas Bloom, Raffaella Sadun, John Van Reenen.