According to Forbes, 99.9% of businesses across the U.S. are small businesses. Although the nation’s largest corporations get media coverage, headlines and spotlight, according to the U.S. Small Business Administration the reality is that the vast majority of businesses in the U.S. are small businesses. In the United States, while 33.2 million small businesses exist, the majority of organizational research data is from large organizations. Using the voice of the employee specific to trust and communication, is there a difference between small companies and a big corporation? Employee survey data from three organizations explores the elements of trust and communication efforts of middle managers. Employee survey responses from one large corporation, and two smaller organizations (small organization-1 in USA, and small organization-2 in Mexico), are comparatively analyzed. Findings indicate that communication and change styles are somewhat different with respect to organizational size. As organizational change efforts, trust and communication impact the levels of employee stress, the implications of communication and stress issues for consultants are discussed. Ongoing research for consultants intersecting the elements of trust, communication and stress within different organizations are discussed.
