Trust between Management and Employees - Literature review Example

Trust between management and employees Student’s Name: Instructor’s Name: Course Code: Date of Submission: Introduction This paper tries to find out if there is a relationship between performance and trust among the top management and the workers. In many organizations there have been poor performances in terms of productivity. This poor performance has been associated with poor relationship between the top management and the employees (Davis et al 2000). The employees don’t trust the top management and the top management does not trust the employees. This poor trust between the two parties has led to poor relationship and thus there is poor performance of organizations. Motivation is low when there is no trust between the top management and the employees (Brower et al 2000). In this regard, this discussion tries to find out if there is performance improvement when there is trust between the management and the employees. In the literature section, various arguments will be made concerning the topic. There are those who support the topic and there are those who oppose it as well. Both arguments will be discussed in details. Finally the conclusion will be given to give a clear relationship between trust and the performance of the organization. Literature review Over some decades now trust has been a major issue in the performance of organizations according to the research which have been conducted. Also there have been many publications concerning the topic which shows the relationship between performance and trust in organizations. Trust is the ability to be answerable to another party without the other party being managed closely. Trust is all about integrity and openness. The model explicit theory explains that the attributes which make an employee to be trusted can change his or her attitudes towards some cultures in the organization (Mayer et al 1995). The three factors that comprise trust are the ability, openness and benevolence. When somebody is trusted it means that that employee has the knowledge of doing some tasks alone. Benevolence is the assumption that the trusted party also cares about the welfare of the other party and integrity is the assumption that the employees follow the set ethical and professional guidelines. This motivates the employees because each one of them does the tasks without being closely monitored. This improves the performance of the organization because the employee feels that he or she is not working under pressure. Trust between the management and the employees lead to high risk taking (Colquitt et al 2012). There are great behaviors of taking risks when there is a trustful relationship between the two parties. For example when an employee is entrusted to have the skills of a accomplishing a certain task, he or she would like to perform even better than he can be trusted to do. This is risk taking because the employee does not know the exact outcome of that decision. In this case the innovation decision improves the performance of the employees and the organization at large. Therefore risk taking can generate ideas which improve the performance of the organization. Trust also builds efficiency in the workplaces (Cremer & Tyler 2007). When there is trust between the employees and the management, chances of increasing efficiency in the operations are high. There is good coordination of activities in every department because there is integrity and everyone is taking care of the other party. In this regard everyone will be careful with resources which minimize wastage and instead improve the utilization of the resources. Therefore, effectiveness in resources utilization improves the performance of the organization by minimizing wastages. Also according to the research conducted in restaurants, where there is trust between the management and the employees they get higher results than when there is no trust at all (Tan & Lim 2009). This is because when there is trust, the employee turnover is at a lower rate. This increases the productivity per employee, hence improving the general performance of the organization. Trust between the two parties also changes the culture of the organization (Tan & Lim 2009). There may exist a culture of misunderstanding and poor performance of the organization but when trust is upheld, the culture changes and the employees begin to share useful ideas. Trust changes the culture of the organization by promoting free interaction and exchange of ideas which will benefit the organization. Therefore a favorable environment for carrying out tasks is achieved which motivates employees to do their tasks effectively thus improving the productivity of the organization. When the employees trust management, they will focus all their attention to that organization and add value to it (Cremer & Tyler 2007). Attention can be in terms efforts to achieve the goals and objectives set by the management. For instance if the employees are certain about their future in the organization, they will work hard to improve the performance. This can only be achieved when the employees and management trust one another. Therefore trust can motivate the employees towards achieving the organizational goals hence improve performance of the employees and the whole organization. Trust between the employees and the management lead to conflict resolutions (Tan & Lim 2009). Conflicts are directly linked with the performance of the organization. In order to solve a conflict, there must be openness and integrity so that the root cause of the problem is established. Trust promotes good communication between the conflicting parties and hence the conflict is resolved. Therefore when the conflicts have been solved there will be a good internal environment which promotes motivation as well as performance of the organization. Furthermore, trust between the employees and management affects the attention of the employees (Salamon & Robinson 2008). Good relationship through trust affects the daily life of the employees. It minimizes stress among the management and the employees which uplifts the morale of each party. Good relationship also reduces time spent by the management to monitor the employees and can concentrate on other productive activities as well as the employees and this improves the performance of the organization. Finally, trust between the workers and the management help the managers in planning (Pepper & Trednnick 2010). If the managers trust their employees, they will find easy time when they are exercising their duties. For instance during planning for various operations of the organization, they know who to allocate where and who not to. This leads to expert knowledge and skills which improves the production of a particular department and the whole organization as well. However there are those who argue that there is no relationship between performance and trust in the organizations or this performance can be negative. They argue that performance of an organization depend on the skills and knowledge and not trust alone (Krammer 1996). There may be trust between the employees and the management but the employees may be incompetent to accomplish their tasks thus cannot improve their productivity. They further argue that trust may lead to freedom which can negatively affect the productivity of the employees (Dicks 1999). For instance if the employees are not monitored closely just in the name of trust, they may boycott their duties leading to poor productivity instead of improving the performance. In this regard trust may have caused trouble to the performance of the organization. Trust and free sharing of information between the management and the employees may lead to disclosure of confidential information to the other stakeholders (Mayer et al 2005). For instance if the management discloses the information concerning the tender evaluations as practiced by the organization to the employees who in turn disclose the information to the suppliers, this information may be used by the suppliers to secure the tenders. Although they not be qualified but they can access the information and be awarded the tender and supply poor quality materials which can lower the quality of products being manufactured thus lowering the performance of the organization. Therefore trust may lower the performance of the organization instead of improving it. Finally, the trust may lead to mismanagement of resources. When the employees are trusted that they can utilize resources effectively, they may misuse the resources and fail to maximize the output level. This is because they are not monitored closely and thus can maximize the input and minimize the output leading to poor performance of the organization. Conclusion From the research which has been conducted on the effect of trust between the employees and the management, it has been found out that there is significant importance of having trust between the management and the employees. Trust improves the morale of employees, it lowers the employees’ turnover, it improves the relationship between the management and the employees, trust leads to effective planning by the managers and finally enables the employees to focus more on the goals and objectives of the organization (Shaw 1997). However, with those who argue that trust does not improve performance of the organization say that trust leads to disclosure of confidential information and may lead to mismanagement of resources. Therefore, trust is important because it improves the performance of the organization. References Brower, H. Schoorman, F & Tan, H 2000, A model of relational Leadership: The integration Of trust and leader–member exchange. Leadership Quarterly, Vol. 11, No. 2, p. 227–250. Colquitt, J. LePine, J. Piccolo, R. Zapata, C & Rich, B 2012, Explaining the Justice-Performance Relationship: Trust as Exchange Deepener or Trust as Uncertainty Reducer?  Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 97, No. 1, pp. 1-15. Cremer, D & Tyler, T 2007, The Effects of trust in Authority and Procedural Fairness on Cooperation. Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 92, no. 3, pp. 639-649. Davis, J. H, Schoorman, F. D, Mayer, R. C & Tan, H. 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