IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/scaman/v31y2015i4p526-535.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Do your employees (collectively) trust you? The importance of trust climate beyond individual trust

Author

Listed:
  • Jiang, Lixin
  • Probst, Tahira M.

Abstract

Current conceptualizations of trust focus largely on the individual level of analysis; neither theory nor empirical study has explored group-level trust on individual-level outcomes. Using a multilevel framework, we hypothesized that both individual-level trust in management and unit-level trust climate would be positively associated with employee job satisfaction, affective commitment, job security, service motivation, and work engagement, and negatively associated with turnover intentions and burnout. Moreover, trust climate would moderate the relationships between individual-level trust and those job-related outcomes. Data collected from 468 faculty members nested in 41 departments at a large university supported our hypotheses. Multilevel analyses revealed that trust climate explained variance in employee outcomes beyond that accounted for by individual trust, and the positive relationship between individual trust and job security was stronger and the negative relationship between trust and burnout was weaker in departments with higher trust climate. These results underscore the theoretical importance of considering the cross-level influence of trust climate and suggest that organizations should focus on creating a positive climate promoting trust beyond fostering individual trust.

Suggested Citation

  • Jiang, Lixin & Probst, Tahira M., 2015. "Do your employees (collectively) trust you? The importance of trust climate beyond individual trust," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 526-535.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:scaman:v:31:y:2015:i:4:p:526-535
    DOI: 10.1016/j.scaman.2015.09.003
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0956522115000676
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.scaman.2015.09.003?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hill, N. Sharon & Bartol, Kathryn M. & Tesluk, Paul E. & Langa, Gosia A., 2009. "Organizational context and face-to-face interaction: Influences on the development of trust and collaborative behaviors in computer-mediated groups," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 108(2), pages 187-201, March.
    2. Bill McEvily & Vincenzo Perrone & Akbar Zaheer, 2003. "Introduction to the Special Issue on Trust in an Organizational Context," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 14(1), pages 1-4, February.
    3. Flora F. Tien & Robert T. Blackburn, 1996. "Faculty Rank System, Research Motivation, and Faculty Research Productivity: Measure Refinement and Theory Testing," The Journal of Higher Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 67(1), pages 2-22, January.
    4. Macey, William H. & Schneider, Benjamin, 2008. "The Meaning of Employee Engagement," Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Cambridge University Press, vol. 1(1), pages 3-30, March.
    5. Kurt T. Dirks & Donald L. Ferrin, 2001. "The Role of Trust in Organizational Settings," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 12(4), pages 450-467, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Agnieszka Bieńkowska & Katarzyna Walecka-Jankowska & Anna Zabłocka-Kluczka & Joanna Zimmer, 2018. "Influence of intra-organizational trust on organizational outcomes," Operations Research and Decisions, Wroclaw University of Science and Technology, Faculty of Management, vol. 28(4), pages 9-30.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Steve Maguire & Nelson Phillips, 2008. "‘Citibankers’ at Citigroup: A Study of the Loss of Institutional Trust after a Merger," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(2), pages 372-401, March.
    2. Paul Benjamin Lowry & Ryan M. Schuetzler & Justin Scott Giboney & Thomas A. Gregory, 2015. "Is Trust Always Better than Distrust? The Potential Value of Distrust in Newer Virtual Teams Engaged in Short-Term Decision-Making," Group Decision and Negotiation, Springer, vol. 24(4), pages 723-752, July.
    3. Han, Shaojie & Su, Jingqin & Lyu, Yibo & Liu, Qing, 2022. "How do business incubators govern incubation relationships with different new ventures?," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    4. Farndale, Elaine & Scullion, Hugh & Sparrow, Paul, 2010. "The role of the corporate HR function in global talent management," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 45(2), pages 161-168, April.
    5. Shalini Srivastava & Poornima Madan, 2016. "Understanding the Roles of Organizational Identification, Trust and Corporate Ethical Values in Employee Engagement–Organizational Citizenship Behaviour Relationship: A Study on Indian Managers," Management and Labour Studies, XLRI Jamshedpur, School of Business Management & Human Resources, vol. 41(4), pages 314-330, November.
    6. S. Hansen & Bradley Alge & Michael Brown & Christine Jackson & Benjamin Dunford, 2013. "Ethical Leadership: Assessing the Value of a Multifoci Social Exchange Perspective," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 115(3), pages 435-449, July.
    7. Wu, Jiang & Ou, Guiyan & Liu, Xiaohui & Dong, Ke, 2022. "How does academic education background affect top researchers’ performance? Evidence from the field of artificial intelligence," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(2).
    8. Alfred L. Luna & Decima Christine Garcia & Shih Yung Chou & Sara Jackson, 2013. "Can Tight Groups At Work Be Detrimental? A Theoretical View Of Gossip From The Network Tie Strength And Density Perspective," Global Journal of Business Research, The Institute for Business and Finance Research, vol. 7(1), pages 91-100.
    9. Bill McEvily, 2011. "Reorganizing the Boundaries of Trust: From Discrete Alternatives to Hybrid Forms," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 22(5), pages 1266-1276, October.
    10. Judit Oláh & Attila Bai & György Karmazin & Péter Balogh & József Popp, 2017. "The Role Played by Trust and Its Effect on the Competiveness of Logistics Service Providers in Hungary," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(12), pages 1-22, December.
    11. Giles Hirst & Fred Walumbwa & Samuel Aryee & Ivan Butarbutar & Chin Jeffery Hui Chen, 2016. "A Multi-level Investigation of Authentic Leadership as an Antecedent of Helping Behavior," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 139(3), pages 485-499, December.
    12. Tilahun Kidane Diko & Shabnam Saxena, 2023. "Antecedents and outcome of employee engagement: Empirical study of Ethiopian public higher education institutions," SN Business & Economics, Springer, vol. 3(8), pages 1-30, August.
    13. Estefanía Palazuelos & Ángel Herrero Crespo & Javier Montoya Corte, 2018. "Accounting information quality and trust as determinants of credit granting to SMEs: the role of external audit," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 51(4), pages 861-877, December.
    14. Nasser Saad Alkahtani & M. M. Sulphey & Kevin Delany & Anass Hamad Elneel Adow, 2021. "A Conceptual Examination about the Correlates of Psychological Capital (PsyCap) among the Saudi Arabian Workforce," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 10(4), pages 1-16, March.
    15. Hatch, Mary Jo & Schultz, Majken, 2013. "The dynamics of corporate brand charisma: Routinization and activation at Carlsberg IT," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 147-162.
    16. Gennady Shkliarevsky, 2022. "Is Our Research Productivity In Decline? A New Approach in Resolving the Controversy," Papers 2203.01235, arXiv.org.
    17. Nasser Saad Al Kahtani & Sulphey M. M., 2022. "A Study on How Psychological Capital, Social Capital, Workplace Wellbeing, and Employee Engagement Relate to Task Performance," SAGE Open, , vol. 12(2), pages 21582440221, May.
    18. Birgit Mellis & Patricia Soto & Chrystal D Bruce & Graciela Lacueva & Anne M Wilson & Rasitha Jayasekare, 2018. "Factors affecting the number and type of student research products for chemistry and physics students at primarily undergraduate institutions: A case study," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(4), pages 1-17, April.
    19. Woocheol Kim & Gohar Feroz Khan & Jacob Wood & Muhammad Tariq Mahmood, 2016. "Employee Engagement for Sustainable Organizations: Keyword Analysis Using Social Network Analysis and Burst Detection Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(7), pages 1-11, July.
    20. Kennedy, Jessica A. & Schweitzer, Maurice E., 2018. "Building trust by tearing others down: When accusing others of unethical behavior engenders trust," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 149(C), pages 111-128.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:scaman:v:31:y:2015:i:4:p:526-535. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/872/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.