I thin it's the other way around, most western companies, especially older small businesses are actually high-trust environments and treat employees like family, or at least try to.

I'd make the argument that authoritarian civilization work was a low-trust environment.. i.e. most professionals in post-communist countries ended with a very stingy untrustworthy personality due to the constraints and incentives of a highly bureaucratic environment with non-genuine pretentious loyalty.