Trust is of major theoretical and instrumental significance for the study of public organizations. Despite an extensive literature detailing the implications of trust in organizational life, there has been little systematic research on its individual or organizational determinants. This article develops and tests a model of trust formation in public organizations. Results of this research show that organizational trust is a distinct work-related attitude. Trust is based on individual demographics, psychological and individual predispositions, attitudes and beliefs, and affective responses to organizational factors. The most important determinants of trust, however, are found in the organizational climate established by supervisory relations.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Adams, J. S. (1963). Toward and understanding of inequity. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 67, 422-436.
2.
Adams, J. S. (1965). Inequity in social exchange. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (pp. 267-297). New York: Academic Press.
3.
Angle, H. L. , & Perry, J. L. (1981). An empirical assessment of organizational commitment and organizational effectiveness. Administrative Science Quarterly, 26, 1-14.
4.
Argyris, C. (1957). Personality and organization. New York: Harper & Brothers.
5.
Argyris, C. (1960). Understanding organizational behavior. Homewood, IL: Dorsey.
6.
Barber, B. (1983). The logic and limits of trust. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
7.
Bennis, W. G. , & Nanus, B. (1985). Leaders: The strategy for taking charge. New York: Harper & Row.
8.
Bernstein, P. (1980). Workplace democratization: Its internal dynamics. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books.
9.
Blake, R. R. , & Mouton, J. S. (1964). The managerial grid. Houston, TX: Gulf Publishing.
10.
Blau, P. M. (1964). Exchange and power in social life. New York: Wiley.
11.
Boss, R. W. (1978). Trust and managerial problem solving revisited. Group & Organization Studies, 3, 331-342.
12.
Bowman, J. S. (1983). Ethical issues for the public manager. In W. B. Eddy (Ed.), Handbook of organizational management (pp. 69-102). New York: Marcel Dekker.
13.
Buchanan, B. (1974). Building organizational commitment: The socialization of managers in work organizations. Administrative Science Quarterly, 19, 533-546.
14.
Carréll, M. R. , & Dittrich, J. E. (1978). Equity theory: The recent literature, methodological considerations, and new directions. Academy of Management Review, 3, 202-210.
15.
Cook, J. , & Wall, T. (1980). New work attitude measures of trust, organizational commitment and personal need nonfulfillment. Journal of Occupational Psychology, 53, 39-52.
16.
Culbert, S. A. , & McDonough, J. J. (1985). Radical management power politics and the pursuit of trust. New York: Free Press.
17.
Culbert, S. A. , & McDonough, J. J. (1986). The politics of trust and organization empowerment. Public Administration Quarterly, 18, 171-178.
18.
Dansereau, F. , Cashman, J., & Graen, G. (1973). Instrumentality theory and equity theory as complementary approaches in predicting the relationship of leadership and turnover among managers. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 10, 184-200.
19.
DeCotis, T. , & Summers, T. (1987). A path analysis of a model of the antecedents and consequences of organizational commitment. Human Relations, 40, 445-470.
20.
Deutsch, M. (1973). The resolution of conflict. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
21.
Eddy, W. B. (1981). Public organization behavior and development. Cambridge, MA: Winthrop Publishers.
22.
Etzioni, A. (1961). A comparative analysis of complex organizations; On power, involvement, and their correlates. New York: Free Press.
23.
Fox, A. (1974). Beyond contract: Work, power, and trust relations. London: Faber & Faber.
24.
French, W. L. , & Bell, C. H., Jr. (1984). Organization development: Behavioral science interventions for organization improvement (3rd ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
25.
Friedlander, F. (1970). The primacy of trust as a facilitator of further group accomplishment. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 6, 387-400.
26.
Fulk, J. , Brief, A., & Barr, S. (1985). Trust-in-supervisor and perceived fairness and accuracy of performance evaluations. Journal of Business Research, 13, 301-313.
27.
Garfinkel, H. (1964). Studies of routine grounds of everyday activities. Social Problems, 11, 225-250.
28.
Gibb, J. (1964). Climate for trust formation. In L. Bradford, J. Gibb, & K. Benne (Eds.), T-group therapy and laboratory method. New York: Wiley.
29.
Gibb, J. (1978). Trust: A new view of personal and organizational development. Los Angeles: Guild Press.
30.
Gilligan, C. (1982). In a different voice. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
31.
Golembiewski, R. T. (1972). Renewing organizations: The laboratory approach to planned change. Itasca, IL: F. E. Peacock.
32.
Golembiewski, R. T. (1979). Approaches to planned change: (Part 1) Orienting perspectives and micro-level interventions. New York: Marcel Dekker.
33.
Golembiewski, R. T. (1985). Humanizing public organizations. Mt. Airy, MD: Lomand Publications.
34.
Golembiewski, R. T. (1986). OD perspectives on high performance: Some good news and some bad news about merit pay. Review of Public Personnel Administration, 7, 9-27.
35.
Golembiewski, R. T. , & McConkie, M. L. (1975). The centrality of interpersonal trust in group processes. In C. L. Cooper (Ed.), Theories of group processes (pp. 131-185). New York: Wiley.
36.
Golembiewski, R. T. , Munzenrider, F., & Stevenson, J. (1986). Stress in organizations: Toward a model of burnout. New York: Praeger.
37.
Graen, G. , Novak, M., & Sommerkamp, P. (1982). The effects of leader-member exchange and job design on productivity and satisfaction: Testing a dual attachment model. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 30, 109-131.
38.
Hackman, H. R. , & Lawler, E. E. (1971). Employee reactions to job characteristics. Journal of Applied Psychology Monograph, 55, 259-286.
39.
Hackman, H. R. , & Oldham, G. R. (1975). Development of the job diagnostic survey. Journal of Applied Psychology, 60, 159-170.
40.
Hackman, H. R. , & Oldham, G. R. (1976). Motivation through the design of work: Test of a theory. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 16, 250-279.
41.
Hackman, H. R. , & Oldham, G. R. (1980). Work redesign. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
42.
Hage, J. (1980). Theories of organizations: Forms, process, and transformation. New York: Wiley.
43.
Herman, J. B. , Dunham, R. B., & Hulin, C. L. (1975). Organizational structure, demographic characteristics, and employee responses. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 13, 206-232.
44.
Herzberg, F. , Mausner, B., & Snyderman, B. D. (1959). The motivation to work (2nd ed.). New York: Wiley.
45.
Hrebiniak, L. G. (1971). A multivariate analysis of professional and organizational commitment orientations among teachers and nurses. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, State University of New York at Buffalo.
46.
Hrebiniak, L. G. , & Alutto, J. A. (1972). Personal and role-related factors in the development of organizational commitment. Administrative Science Quarterly, 17, 555-573.
47.
Kanter, D. L. , & Mirvis, P. H. (1989). The cynical Americans: Living and working in an age of discontent and disillusion. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
48.
Levinson, H. (1962). Men, management, and mental health. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
49.
Likert, R. (1967). The human organization. New York: McGraw-Hill.
50.
Lipset, S. M. , & Schneider, W. (1983). The confidence gap. New York: Free Press.
51.
Locke, E. , Latham, G., & Erez, M. (1988). The determinants of goal commitment. Academy of Management Review, 13, 23-39.
52.
Loomis, J. (1959). Communication, the development of trust, and cooperative behavior. Human Relations, 12, 305-315.
53.
Luhman, N. (1979). Trust and power. London: Wiley.
54.
March, J. G. , & Simon, H. A. (1958). Organizations. New York: Wiley.
55.
Maslow, A. (1954). Motivation and personality. New York: Harper.
56.
McGregor, D. (1960). The human side of enterprise. New York: McGraw-Hill.
57.
Mellinger, G. D. (1956). Interpersonal trust as a factor in communication. Journal of Abnormal Social Psychology, 52, 304-309.
58.
Miles, R. E. , & Ritchie, J. B. (1984). Participative management: Quality versus quantity. In D. A. Kolb, I. A. Rubin, & J. M. McIntyre (Eds.), Organization psychology (4th ed., pp. 430-440). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
59.
Miller, J. B. (1976). Toward a new psychology of women. Boston: Beacon Press.
60.
Nachmias, D. (1985). Determinants of trust within the federal bureaucracy. In D. H. Rosenbloom (Ed.), Public personnel policy: The politics of civil service (pp. 133-143). Port Washington, NY: Associated Faculty Press.
61.
O'Reilly, C. A. , & Roberts, K. H. (1967). Relationships among components of credibility and communication, behaviors, and work units. Journal of Applied Psychology, 31, 99-102.
62.
Pascale, R. T. , & Athos, A. G. (1981). The art of Japanese management. New York: Warner Books.
63.
Peters, B. G. (1984). Politics of bureaucracy (2nd ed.). New York: Longman.
64.
Rainey, H. G. (1982). Reward preferences among public and private managers: In search of the service ethic. American Review of Public Administration, 16, 288-301.
65.
Roberts, K. H. , & O'Reilly, C. A. (1974a). Measuring organizational communication. Journal of Applied Psychology, 59, 321-326.
66.
Roberts, K. H. , & O'Reilly, C. A. (1974b). Failures in upward communication: three possible culprits. Academy of Management Journal, 17, 205-215.
67.
Robinson, J. P. , & Shaver, P. R. (1972). Measures of social psychological attitudes. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, Institute for Social Research.
68.
Rosen, B. , & Jerdee, T. H. (1977). Factors influencing disciplinary judgments. Journal of Applied Psychology, 59, 327-331.
69.
Rotter, J. B. (1966). Generalized expectancies for internal versus external control of reinforcement. Psychological Monographs, 80 (1, Whole No. 609).
70.
Rotter, J. B. (1967). A new scale for the measurement of interpersonal trust. Journal of Personality, 35, 651-665.
71.
Schein, E. H. (1969). Process consultation. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
72.
Schein, E. H. (1980). Organizational psychology (3rd ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
73.
Sherif, M. (1966). In common predicament. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin.
74.
Strickland, L. H. (1958). Surveillance and trust. Journal of Personality, 26, 200-215.
75.
Turner, A. N. , & Lawrence, P. R. (1965). Industrial jobs and the worker. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, Graduate School of Business Administration.
76.
Zand, D. E. (1972). Trust and managerial problem solving. Administrative Science Quarterly, 17, 229-239.
