This first chapter provides an introduction to the study. The chapter provides an understanding of the background of the study. The research purpose, research questions, significance of the study and the delimitations and limitations were also discussed. Finally, operational definitions of terms were provided that were significant to this research. This chapter is paramount in understanding the focus and direction of this research.
Background of Study
Covey (2004) in his best known book entitled 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, which was first published in 1989 suggests that “Trust is the highest form of human motivation.
It brings out the very best people.”(p. 178). Trust exists in several different level interpersonal, intergroup, organizational, and societal (Cummings & Bromiley, 1996).
We live in an era of change where many traditional views of organizations functions are becoming less desirable. In the past many organizations ruled under the assumption that employees were not to be trusted to do their work unless they were under strict supervision or heavily monitored. This was in an effort to reduce the inevitable risk that business owners or managers face when responsibilities are given to employees who may or may not fulfill their job duties. If these employees were not monitored then managers would have little control on whether or not they would fulfill their obligations and create value for the organizations. Three theories were mentioned in this research as important in understanding the role of trust in the organization. The theories are namely: Social exchange theory, agency theory, and theory X and Y. The social exchange theory and the agency theory are mentioned in several studies on trust as foundations for building trust.
The first theory worth mentioning is the social exchange which is defined as the following: “Exchange theory is based on the premise that human behavior or social Interaction is an exchange of activity, tangible and intangible” (Homans 1961, p.212-3 as cited in Zafirovski, 2005). Relationship based perspectives on trust is based on philosophies of the social exchange and deals with the employees inclination to return the considerations that they receive from their
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leaders (Bachmann & Zaheer, 2006). Based on this theory, it can be deduced that if managers should show some level of trust towards their employees then it would be reciprocated.
The second theory which is the agency theory refers to the agent –principal relationship that assumes that agents tend to act in their own interest rather than in the interest of the principal which is usually the person who owns the business (Jensen, 1994). For this reason the agency theory suggest that in other for the principal to reduce this risk and encourage the agents to act in the best interest of the company, the principal can increase monitoring or base the agent’s compensation on task outcome. Trust may be a better alternative in this case because it builds a more positive environment and allows for more risk taking. Trust is based on the expectation that one will find what is expected rather than what is feared (Deutsch, 1973 as cited in McAllister 1995)
Post World War II studies investigated management perception of workers attitudes and how these perceived attitudes affected managers’ behavior. The final theory which is the X and Y theory was proposed by Douglas McGregor. He suggested two assumptions on how perceptions of employees work attitude affect managements’ behavior. Theory X and Theory Y are opposing assumptions where the former is described as negative suppositions about employees’ attitude towards work that leads to the idea that these employees need to be closely supervised in an effort to control their behaviors. Theory Y takes the contrasting view that focuses on positive assumptions about workers that leads management to provide a work setting that encourages employees to be committed to organizational goals, and allows them to draw on their own initiative and be more self-directed (Jones & George, 2008). There can be little doubt that Theory Y is a more agreeable approach to management, and that trust in employees lies at the core of this concept (Stewart, 2010).
Indeed the importance of trust in any aspect of life cannot be overemphasized. Since individuals are the ones who make up the organizations, then it stands to reason that trust would also play a vital role in its success. Many studies have been conducted on the concept of trust in several different fields including but not limited to sociology, psychology, and management.
Since the importance of trust is so widely accepted, the quest of many organizations today is to find avenues to build trust between employees, leaders and their organization. As could be expected different literature has different meanings of trust but vulnerability seem to be commonly associated with trust. Schoorman, Mayer, and Davis (2007) in their article describe
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trust as the following: “Trust is the willingness of a party to be vulnerable to the actions of another party based upon the expectations that the other party will perform a particular action important to the trustor” (p. 712). This study utilized the definition of trust provided by Tzfrir and Dolan (2004) who described trust as the following “A willingness to increase one’s resource investment in another party based on positive expectation, resulting from past positive mutual interactions.” The authors provide three dimensions upon which trust is built. They are namely:
Reliability, harmony and concern.
Whitener, Brodt, Korsgaard, and Werner (1998) described trust as reflecting three facets.
First, trust in another party is based on the belief that the other party will act benevolently.
Second, one party cannot force the other to carry out the expectation because trust involves the willingness to be vulnerable, which creates the risk that the other party may not fulfill that expectation. Third, some level of dependency is needed; the outcomes of one party are influenced by the actions of another. This attitude of trust can be achieved based on the trustor’s perceptions, beliefs, and acknowledgments about the trustee, and that comes about through the observable behavior of the trustee.
In other for one to appreciate the true value of trust in any organization, it is critical for one to understand that trust building in the work environment is a mutual process and that it would prove difficult for one party to trust if it is not reciprocated by the other party (Six, 2005).
Furthermore not only should trust be reciprocated, it also should begin with the manager.
Management should take the first step in initiating trust through their actions and behaviors (Whitener et al., 1998).
Job attitude according to Carpenter, Bauer, and Erdogan (2010) refers to a person’s opinions, beliefs, and feelings about different facets of his/her environment. Attitudes according to Hellriegel and Slocum (2007) consist of three different components: 1) Affective component which refers to ones’ feelings, moods or sentiments. 2) A cognitive component which refers to ones’ thoughts and opinions. 3) A behavioral component which refers to ones’ actions favorable or unfavorable. Based on the findings of Harrison, Newman and Roth (2006), they reasoned that employees who possess a general positive attitude towards their job will contribute positively to work outputs. Lambert and Hogan (2008) states that job satisfaction and organizational commitment is important in determining if employees would leave or stay in the organization.
Luthans (2006 as cited in Haldar 2009) states that there are three major job attitudes which are
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Job involvement, affective organizational commitment, and job satisfaction. This research used the three dimensions in measuring employees’ perception of managerial trust suggested by Tzafrir and Dolan (2004) and looked at its effect on their job attitudes which are job involvement, affective organizational commitment, and job satisfaction.
Purpose of Study
One of the essential assumptions of trust that many researchers have discovered, is that it has a significant positive relationship with many measures of organizational outcome (Kramer, 1999; Shockley-Zalabak, Ellis, & Cesaria, 2000). Therefore the concept of trust should not be ignored or underestimated in the success of any organization.
Many studies conducted in the past, focused solely on employees trust in leadership (Hassan & Ahmed, 2011) rather than on managers’ trust in their employees. The researcher aimed to flip the coin and focused the research on managers’ trust in their subordinates and how it affected employee job attitudes. This study focused on trust on the interpersonal level particularly managerial trust in subordinates and further focused on how employees’ perception of managerial trust affected their job satisfaction, affective organization commitment and job involvement.
The purpose of this research then was to establish the extent to which perceived managerial trust of subordinates contributes to three major job attitudes as described below.
1. To examine the degree to which perceived managerial trust of subordinates contributes to employees’ job involvement.
2. To examine the degree to which perceived managerial trust of subordinates contributes to employees’ affective organizational commitment.
3. To examine the degree to which perceived managerial trust of subordinates contributes to employees’ job satisfaction.
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Research Questions
The following questions were formulated based on the researcher’s intention to explore and analyze how managerial trusts in their subordinates affected employee job attitudes.
1. How does perceived managerial trust in their subordinates affect employee job involvement?
2. How does perceived managerial trust in their subordinates affect employees’ affective organizational commitment?
3. How does perceived managerial trust in their subordinates affect employees’ job satisfaction?
Significance of Study
Trust is said to be a key factor in organizational relationships hence management attitude to the issue of trust is of academic and practical significance (Tzafrir, 2005). To date, it must be noted also that majority of the studies conducted in relation to trust in the organization has been predominantly focused on employees trust in their leaders. Literature stress on the mutual significance of trust, for example Six (2005) states that trust building within the work setting is a joint process and that it would be difficult to build trust if its only one-sided. Furthermore not only should trust be reciprocated, it also should begin with the manager. Management should take the first step in initiating trust through their actions and behaviors (Whitener et al., 1998).
Although it is agreed upon that managers should be the initiators of trust, few studies have actually focused on managerial trust in their subordinates (Hassan & Ahmed, 2011; Leonard 2008; Tzafrir, 2005). Due to the limited number of research which actually focused on this aspect of trust, this study provided valuable insight on the value of managerial trust. This study provided valuable contribution to the research that has already been done on the concept of trust.
Furthermore there are number of research which probes into employees trust in leadership and its effect on employee job attitudes, but little research on how managerial trust in their subordinates would affect employees’ job attitudes. This research shared some light on how
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the subordinates’ perception of managerial trust affects the employees’ job attitude namely: Job satisfaction, job involvement and affective organizational commitment.
Delimitations and Limitations Delimitations
Firstly, this study was delimited to St. Lucia which is a small island country located in the Caribbean basin. Secondly, the study was also delimited to the Financial Sector including banks, credit unions and insurance. Finally, this study was delimited to focus solely on interpersonal trust in particular managerial trust of subordinates and did not look at organizational trust on the whole.
Limitations
Firstly, this research used purposive sampling which is a non-probability sampling, for this reason a limitation to the study was that this method gave no assurance that the sample was representative of the entire population (Babbie 2011). This was so because it would have been very difficult otherwise to get participants for this research especially due to time constraint.
Secondly, this study was further limited to employees’ perception of managerial trust which may not reflect the actual situation at work however, Wagner and Hollenbeck (2005) mentions that while perceptions may not accurately represent what is in actuality, “We must look at the individual’s perception of the situation-not the actual situation to understand his or her personal reaction.” (pp.106-7). For this reason, because the aim of this research was to understand how managerial trust of subordinates contributes to employees’ job attitudes then in this case using their perception may be the appropriate approach to take.
Thirdly, a sample size of 100 was used in this research and could be considered small if one were to compare it to the size of the workforce in the financial sector; hence there should be some caution in the interpreting of the results of this study.
Fourthly another limitation to this study is that the R squared associated with the effect of managerial trust on job involvement is very low which could indicate that there are other underlying factors that could have a higher impact on job involvement or the instrument used to measure the construct may not have been the best one. Still it is important to bear in mind that
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collecting data in real life is not always predictable and different studies would produce varying results.
Finally, although Cronbach’s alpha of all constructs for the pilot study all had values ranging from 0.818 to 0.942, the main research Cronbach’s alpha for “harmony” as a dimension of trust was considered too low (0.589). This indicates low internal consistency and should be seen as a limitation in this study.
Operational Definitions of Terms Trust
“A willingness to increase one’s resource investment in another party, based on positive expectation, resulting from past positive mutual interactions.” (Tzafrir & Dolan, 2004)
Reliability
“Is determined by whether or not co-workers, teams, suppliers, or organizations act consistently, and dependably.” (Shockley-Zalabak, Ellis, & Cesaria, 2000). “Reliability consists of systematic and consistent procedures and behaviours, and is strengthened when promises and commitments are kept and fulfilled.” (Butler, 1991; Gabarro, 1978; Johnson-George & Swap, 1982 as cited in Tzafrir & Dolan, 2004 p. 118).
Harmony
“A positive combination of feelings, interests, opinions, purpose, and values inside the employment relationship system creates harmony.” (Tzafrir & Dolan, 2004 p.118)
Concern
Concern as a dimension of trust is one party belief that another party will not take undue advantage of them (McGregor, 1967: 163; Bromiley & Cummings, 1993 as cited in Mishra 1996).
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Job Attitudes
Attitudes according to Carpenter, Bauer, and Erdogan (2010) refers to a person’s opinions, beliefs, and feelings about different facets of his/her environment. Luthans (2006 as cited in Haldar, 2009) classifies three major job attitudes as namely: Job satisfaction, job involvement, and organizational commitment.
Job Satisfaction
“Job satisfaction may be defined as a pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one’s job or job experiences.” (Locke, 1969)
Job Involvement
Job involvement is described by Lodahl and Kejner (1965 as cited in Reeve & Smith, 2001) as the amount of meaning attached to ones’ work in relation to ones total self-image.
Lawler and Hall (1970 as cited in Ekmekçi, 2011) described the concept as the degree to which a person identifies his entire work situation to be important and is a dominant part of his identity because it satisfies his important needs.
Affective Organizational Commitment
Employees feel identified with his/her organization and its policies and form an emotional attachment to the organization (Haldar, 2009).
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