| Course | MT262 Leading Global Teams |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 7 |
| Paper type | Trust building plan |
| Length | About 880 words, 6 pages double-spaced |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Purdue University Global |
| Program | BS in Business Administration |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for MT262 Unit 7
Ninety Days to Trust Without Ever Meeting: A Unit 7 Trust Building Plan for Three New Engineers in Lisbon
[Student Name]
Purdue University Global
MT262: Leading Global Teams
Unit 7 Trust Building Plan
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
The tour-booking firm, its offices, the new engineers and the support leads are composite and illustrative; the sources cited are real.
The Situation
Three data engineers, all new to the company, will join the Lisbon office in the first week of next quarter. They will build and maintain the data pipelines that confirm when a customer's booking has cleared payment. The two partner support leads in Auckland rely on those pipelines every day: when a tour operator asks whether a booking is confirmed, the support leads tell them based on what the pipeline shows. Lisbon and Auckland are eleven to thirteen hours apart and share no working hours. There is no travel budget.
If the support leads do not trust the new engineers' work, they will double-check every booking by hand or hedge every answer to operators. If the engineers do not trust the support leads' reports, they will treat every complaint as user error. Either way, operators will notice.
Why Trust Has to Be Built Deliberately
Trust between people who never meet does not form the way trust in an office does, through years of watching each other work. Jarvenpaa and Leidner (1999), followed student teams spread across many countries that worked together only online, and reported that some teams developed trust quickly, which they called swift trust, while others never did. The teams that built trust early communicated often, showed enthusiasm and competence in their first exchanges, and responded predictably. Trust built in the first weeks was fragile but could become durable if members kept behaving reliably. Meyerson et al. (1996) had described swift trust earlier as a willingness to trust strangers in temporary groups based on their roles and early behavior, before any history exists.
Jarvenpaa et al. (1998) also found that members' perceptions of each other's ability and integrity mattered most early, with benevolence becoming more important later. That research suggests the plan's three phases: show competence early, make behavior predictable, and add personal contact where possible.
The Phase Table
Phase one, days 1 to 30: visible competence.
Each new engineer writes a short introduction for the support leads, stating their background, what they will own and one recent problem they solved
Within the first week, each engineer delivers one small, useful change to the support leads, such as a clearer status label on the booking dashboard, and asks for written feedback
The support leads write a one-page note on the three questions operators ask most often, so the engineers see the work through their eyes
Phase two, days 31 to 60: predictability.
A reply standard: every message between the two groups is answered within one working day in the recipient's office
A visible commitment log in the shared tracker, where each promise carries its due date, hour and time zone and is later marked done or missed
A weekly written summary from Lisbon of pipeline changes, posted before Auckland's day begins
Phase three, days 61 to 90: non-task contact.
Each person records a two-minute video about something outside work, such as a hobby or their city, and posts it to a shared channel
A monthly recorded walkthrough of a pipeline change by one engineer, with questions answered in writing by the support leads
One live call, held during the rotating monthly all-hands slot that suits both groups least badly, used only for introductions
Why No Live Social Call
A common recommendation for virtual teams is a regular live social call. For this pair it is not possible: any hour that works in Lisbon is the middle of the night in Auckland, and the reverse. Asking either side to take a social call at three in the morning would build resentment rather than trust. Recorded videos give the same kind of personal glimpse without demanding that anyone lose sleep.
Trust between people who never share an hour is built by keeping small promises in writing.
How Trust Is Different From Team-Building
Team-building events aim at liking. This plan aims at reliance: the support leads must be willing to tell an operator a booking is confirmed because the pipeline says so. That is closer to what Jarvenpaa and Leidner measured, the willingness to depend on others' work, than to friendship. Liking may follow, and it would help, but the plan is built to work even if the two groups never become friends.
Measurement
A four-item pulse survey goes to all five people at days 30, 60 and 90, each item rated from one to five: I can rely on the other group to do what they say; I understand what the other group needs from me; I would raise a concern with the other group directly; and I check the other group's work less than I did a month ago. The plan also tracks two behaviors: the share of commitments in the log met on the stated date, and the number of bookings the support leads verify by hand each week. If the hand checks fall and the scores rise, the plan is working.
References
Jarvenpaa, S. L., Knoll, K., & Leidner, D. E. (1998). Is anybody out there? Antecedents of trust in global virtual teams. Journal of Management Information Systems, 14(4), 29-64. https://doi.org/10.1080/07421222.1998.11518185
Jarvenpaa, S. L., & Leidner, D. E. (1999). Communication and trust in global virtual teams. Organization Science, 10(6), 791-815. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.10.6.791
Meyerson, D., Weick, K. E., & Kramer, R. M. (1996). Swift trust and temporary groups. In R. M. Kramer & T. R. Tyler (Eds.), Trust in organizations: Frontiers of theory and research (pp. 166-195). Sage.
MT262 Unit 7 instructions, in plain terms
Unit 7 asks students to plan how trust will be built between members of a dispersed team who have little or no shared time. Define the situation precisely: who depends on whom, for what, and what constraints apply, such as time zones and budget. The prompt usually expects the plan to draw on research about trust in virtual teams, such as swift trust, and to set out phases with specific actions. Explain why each phase comes in its order and why some common tactics do not fit your situation. Measurement should include behavior as well as survey scores. Five pages usually covers the phase table, the response standard and a short measurement plan.
How the MT 262 Unit 7 example is put together
The plan opens on the situation: the new engineers' pipelines, the support leads' reliance on them and the eleven to thirteen hours between the cities. The next section argues that trust across this gap has to be designed, citing Jarvenpaa and Leidner, Jarvenpaa and colleagues on ability and integrity, and Meyerson and colleagues on swift trust. The phase table sets out competence, predictability and non-task contact over ninety days, under a margin note on order. A section explains why no live social call is planned, with the highlighted line on keeping small promises in writing. Another separates trust from team-building. Measurement combines a four-item pulse survey with commitments met and manual booking checks, under a final note.
Where the points sit in the MT262 Unit 7 rubric
Trust plans are graded on a precise statement of who must trust whom, tactics grounded in research, sensible phasing and meaningful measurement. Instructors reward plans that explain the order of phases, such as competence and reliability before personal warmth, using findings on swift trust. Tactics should fit the constraints; a plan that proposes social calls at three in the morning shows the writer has not checked the clocks. Distinguishing trust as reliance from liking shows conceptual clarity. Measures that include behavior, such as how often work is double-checked, earn more than survey scores alone. Clear phases, realistic actions and accurate citations complete the rubric.
MT262 Unit 7 help from the desk
Students often propose generic team-building, such as virtual games or social calls, without asking whether the time zones allow them. Another frequent problem is a plan that aims at friendliness rather than at the reliance the work requires. Some plans list tactics without phases or research behind them. Others measure only survey scores, which can rise without any change in how people work. Make sure each action has an owner and a date. Describe the people who must learn to rely on each other and the constraints they face, and a writer can draft a phased plan and choose measures that show whether it is working.
Get an MT262 Unit 7 example written to your instructions
Who needs to trust whom on the team your Unit 7 materials describe, and what distance lies between them? Describe that, add the prompt and rubric, and a custom plan is written to those instructions within 24-48h. The first comes free, and each phase in it can be checked against a calendar. The paper above is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Purdue University Global document.
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MT262 Unit 7 questions, answered
What is swift trust?
A form of trust that temporary groups extend quickly, before members have history together, based on role expectations and early behavior. Research on global virtual teams found it can form fast but is fragile: early enthusiasm and reliable responses sustain it, while early silence or missed commitments erode it and are hard to repair. Plans built on it front-load visible action.
How is a trust plan different from team-building?
Team-building activities aim at liking; a trust plan aims at reliance, whether one person will act on another's work without checking it. The plan therefore centers on behaviors tied to the work: early deliverables, predictable responses and visible commitments. Social contact still has a place, but as one element among several, scheduled so that nobody attends in the middle of the night.
How can trust be measured?
Short pulse surveys asking about reliance on specific colleagues work well, repeated at intervals. Behavioral signs help too: how often work is rechecked before use, whether questions are asked directly or routed through a manager, and how quickly problems are raised. Choose measures that could show the plan failing, not only measures of whether its activities took place.
Where can I find a free MT262 Unit 7 sample paper?
This page carries the full MT262 Unit 7 trust building plan. It builds trust in three phases between new Lisbon engineers and Auckland support leads who share no working hours, drawing on swift trust research.
How is trust measured in the MT262 Unit 7 sample?
With a four-item pulse survey at days 30, 60 and 90, the share of logged commitments met on the stated date and the number of bookings the support leads still check by hand each week.