The Relationship between Employer, Employee Trust and the Antecedents of Trust - Example

The Relationship between Employer / Employee Trust and the Antecedents of Trust University of Western Sydney Abstract Mayer, Davis, and Schoorman (1995) proposed that the degree of trust which Person A has in Person B depends largely on Person A’s perception of Person B. In particular, Person A will evaluate Person B in terms of three perceived qualities, namely ability, integrity and benevolence. The current study aims to investigate the relationship between a person’s level of trust in another person and these three antecedents (perceived ability, integrity and benevolence). Two sets of perceptions were studied, firstly an employee’s perceptions of a supervisor, and secondly the supervisor’s perceptions of an employee. Each of the three antecedents was correlated with an overall measure of how comfortable the person would feel in trusting the other party. The three antecedents were also correlated with each other. The sample consisted of 266 undergraduate students at the University of Western Sydney. Participants completed two measures, one assessing perceptions held by the employee about the supervisor, and another assessing perceptions held by the supervisor about the employee. The results did not indicate a particularly strong or clear relationship between the three antecedents and the overall level of trust, and thus did not provide empirical evidence in support of Mayer et al.’s theory. The Antecedents of Trust Rotter’s (1967) attempts to measure and understand interpersonal trust provided a foundation for the study of this important field of human relations. More recently, Mayer, Davis, and Schoorman (1995) proposed that the degree of trust which one person has for another person depends on four variables. Three of these variables relate to the perceived qualities of the trustee (the person to be trusted or distrusted), and the fourth is a trait of the trustor (the person who is doing the trusting or mistrusting). The same principles apply when it is organizations rather than individuals that are attempting to establish trust (Schoorman, Mayer, & Davis, 2007). However, in the case of organizations, there are often control mechanisms which either support the development of trust or actually hinder it (Schoorman et al., 1996; Schoorman et al., 2007; McEvily, Perrone, & Zaheer, 2003; Sitkin & George, 2005). As organizations become increasingly multicultural, it is no longer possible for people to trust others merely because they come from the same cultural or gender background, and more understanding of positive ways of developing trust in organizations is needed (Schoorman et al., 2007; Williams, 2001). The important qualities of the trustee—as perceived by the trustor—are ability, integrity and benevolence, and these are referred to as the antecedents of trust (Mayer et al., 1995). Ability refers to skills and competence in the specific, relevant area or domain; integrity refers to a value system or guiding principles which the trustor finds acceptable; and benevolence refers to altruism or unselfish, kindly intentions towards the trustor or other people (Mayer et al., 1995; Davis, Schoorman, Mayer, & Tan, 2000). Propensity to trust is a trait of the trustor, and it affects how quickly the trustor tends to trust or mistrust another person in the absence of any other information about the trustee’s personal qualities (Mayer et al., 1995). The propensity to trust appears to have strong cultural determinants (Schoorman et al, 2007). Mayer et al.’s (1995) definition of trust is “the willingness to be vulnerable to another party when that party cannot be controlled or monitored” (Mayer & Gavin, 2005, p. 874; see Mayer et al. 1995, p. 712 for the original full definition). Thus, the ability to trust another person implies a willingness to take a risk in terms of the other person’s behavior (Mayer et al., 1995; Davis et al., 2000). The current study aimed to investigate the relationship between people’s level of trust in another person and the three antecedents of perceived ability, integrity and benevolence. Propensity to trust was not included as a research variable. Each of the three antecedent variables was correlated with an overall measure of how comfortable the person would feel about trusting the other party. The sample consisted of undergraduate university students, who completed two measures, one assessing perceptions held by an employee about a supervisor, and another assessing perceptions held by a supervisor about an employee. The aim was to examine the correlations between one person’s overall level of trust in the other person (as measured by the variable Comfort) and the antecedents of trust (Ability, Integrity and Benevolence). On the basis of the previous research and according to the related theories of Mayer et al. (1995), Mayer and Gavin (2005), and Davis et al. (2000), it was predicted that Ability, Integrity and Benevolence would show positive covariance, because they measure three related aspects of the way a trustee is perceived. It was also predicted that higher levels of these three variables would be positively correlated with higher levels of Comfort. The research was exploratory and non-experimental, and aimed to investigate correlations between the variables rather than any possible causative relationships between them. Method Participants The participants were 266 undergraduate students at the University of Western Sydney. The participants were both male and female, from various race groups, and the majority were young adults. The students took part in the research on a voluntary basis and they gave their informed consent and did not incur any risks by taking part. Materials Participants were given two questionnaires, shown in the Appendix. For the first questionnaire (Appendix A) they were asked to imagine that they were a supervisor trying to evaluate an employee named “JB”. A character sketch was given about JB (see Appendix A), and on the basis of this the respondents were asked to rate JB’s ability, integrity and benevolence. They were also asked to state how comfortable they felt in general about trusting JB with an unmonitored task. This questionnaire measured the (imaginary) supervisor’s perceptions of, and trust in, JB. For the second questionnaire (Appendix B) they were asked to imagine that they were an employee rating a supervisor named “Taylor”. A character sketch was given about Taylor (see Appendix B), and on the basis of this the respondents were asked to rate Taylor’s ability, integrity and benevolence. They were also asked to state how comfortable they felt about trusting Taylor with their lives and their careers. This questionnaire measured the (imaginary) employee’s perceptions of, and trust in, Taylor. Each questionnaire consisted of seven items, each with a seven-point Likert response scale. Items 1 and 8, namely the initial items of each questionnaire, measured the general level of trust in the other person, and were operationalized as Worker Comfort and Employer Comfort respectively. The responses to this single-item subscale ranged from “1: Petrified [to trust this person with an unmonitored project]” to “7: completely comfortable [to trust him/her]”. The responses to all other items, which were phrased as statements expressing positive perceptions of the other person, ranged from “1: Strongly disagree” to “7: strongly agree”. Items 2 and 3 measured the (imaginary) supervisor’s perceptions of JB’s ability, and the scores for these items were summed and divided by two to yield a single overall subscale score for the variable Worker Ability. Items 4 and 5 measured perceived Worker Integrity and were also summed and divided by two; and items 6 and 7 measured Worker Benevolence and were also summed and divided to yield a single score. The second questionnaire followed exactly the same pattern, with Items 9 and 10 measuring the (imaginary) employee’s perceptions of Employer Ability; Items 11 and 12 measuring perceived Employer Integrity, and Items 13 and 14 measuring Employer Benevolence. No items were reverse scored. Thus for every item, and also for the mean scores, a higher score indicated a higher level of Comfort, or of perceived Ability, Integrity or Benevolence. Procedure Participants were informed about the nature of the research, and completed the questionnaires in their own time. The administrator collected the results and calculated the means, standard deviations, and correlations of the scores. Results Table 1 shows the results for the means and standard deviations of each of the four variables of interest. Because the variables had each been reduced to a single subscale score as described above, rough comparisons may be made between them. However, the standard deviations differed, which means that the participants’ responses were not evenly clustered or spread out for each item, and thus direct comparisons are not mathematically accurate and should be regarded as estimates. Table 1. Means and Standard deviations for comfort and trust subscales . ­­­­­­­­ Variables No Mean Standard deviation ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­ Worker Comfort 266 2.48 .92 Worker Ability 266 4.20 .99 Worker Integrity 266 4.38 1.14 Worker Benevolence 266 5.87 1.03 Employer Comfort 266 2.46 1.16 Employer Ability 266 3.07 1.00 Employer Integrity 266 4.23 1.11 Employer Benevolence 266 5.34 1.12 Table 2 shows the statistical correlations between the Worker variables. Comfort was weakly and positively correlated (.15; p < 0.05) with Ability, but not with Integrity or Benevolence. Integrity and Ability were also weakly correlated (.19; p < 0.05), and Benevolence and Integrity were slightly more strongly correlated (.28; p < 0.01). No other correlations were statistically significant. The hypothesis that Comfort would be positively correlated with all three antecedent variables was not supported; the hypothesis that all three antecedent variables would co-vary was also not supported. Table 2. Correlations between Worker comfort and trust subscales. Variables 1 2 3 4 1. Worker Comfort – 2. Worker Ability .15* – 3. Worker Integrity .01 .19* – 4. Worker Benevolence .01 .11 .28** – Table 3 shows the statistical correlations between the Employer variables. Comfort was modestly and positively correlated (.39; p < 0.01) with Ability, and Benevolence and Integrity were also modestly correlated (.39; p < 0.01). Integrity and Ability were weakly correlated (.12; p < 0.05). No other correlations were statistically significant. The hypothesis that Comfort would be positively correlated with all three antecedent variables was not supported; the hypothesis that all three antecedent variables would co-vary was also not supported. Table 3. Correlations between Employer comfort and trust subscales. Variables 1 2 3 4 1. Employer Comfort – 2. Employer Ability .39** – 3. Employer Integrity .12* .10 – 4. Employer Benevolence .07 -.04 .39** – Discussion The mean scores for Worker Comfort and Employer Comfort indicate that neither JB nor Taylor were well trusted by the supervisor and employee respectively, with both scores falling short of the “neutral” response of 4. Interestingly, however, all of the other variables except for Employer Ability scored somewhere between “4: neutral” and “7: strongly agree”. This shows that perceptions of JB’s ability, integrity and benevolence were positive, while perceptions of Taylor’s integrity and benevolence were positive but perceptions of Taylor’s ability were negative. It is evident from casual scrutiny of the mean scores that there was no positive correlation between Comfort, with its low mean score, and the three antecedents, with their higher scores. This conclusion was confirmed by the actual correlation indices. Thus the results of the present study did not provide overall support for the hypotheses that general level of trust (Comfort) would correlate with all three antecedents (subscale scores). They also did not support the hypothesis that the subscale scores would co-vary with each other. All of the statistically significant correlations were beneath .40, which implies only a modest correlation, and most correlations were actually a lot weaker than this. For both the Worker and Employer variables, the relatively strong correlation between Benevolence and Integrity does agree with previous research findings. As a result of such findings, several researchers have “questioned the independence of these variables” (Schoorman et al., 2007, p. 346). The correlation between Worker Ability and Integrity shows that (imaginary) supervisors tended to perceive some congruence between a worker’s skill or ability in the relevant domain and his or her integrity. The correlation between Employer Comfort and Integrity shows that the level of overall trust (Comfort) which an (imaginary) employee feels towards an employer is influenced by the integrity which the employer is seen as having. More important, however, in determining the employee’s trust in the employer is the perceived ability of the employer. Weaknesses of the current study include the imaginary nature of the perceptions. It is possible that a part of what was being measured was the students’ ability to create realistic mental representations of a fictional person in their minds, rather than actual interpersonal perceptions as they might be found in the workplace. In addition, the sample consisted of young people who probably did not have much real-life experience of employer / employee relations. Schoorman et al. (2007) emphasize that trusting relationships are established over time, as the parties learn more about each other. A cross-sectional study like the current one excludes the influence of time, and this must be regarded as a weakness. A further weakness is that Mayer et al.(1995) state that a fourth variable of importance when understanding trust is the trustor’s propensity or readiness to trust, in the absence of any other information about the trustee. This variable was not included in the current study. Propensity to trust probably has cultural determinants (Schoorman et al., 2007), and the current sample’s multicultural composition may have meant that this variable was exerting a confounding influence on the results. In conclusion, the results of this study are intriguing and suggest the need for further research into employees’ and employers’ perceptions of each other, particularly with regard to the antecedents of trust as outlined by Mayer et al (1995). References Davis, J.H., Schoorman, F.D., Mayer, R.C., Davis, J.H., & Tn, H.H. (2000). The trusted general manager and business unit performance: empirical evidence of a comptetitve advantage. Strategic Management Journal 21(5), 563-576. Mayer, R.C., & Gavin, M.B. (2005). Trust in management and performance: who minds the shop while the employees watch the boss? Academy of Management Review 48(5), 874-888. Mayer, R.C., Davis, J.H., & Schoorman, F.D. (1995). An integrative model of organizational trust. Academy of Management Review 20 (3), 709-734. McCall, R. (1990). Fundamental statistics for behavioral sciences (5th ed.). New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. McEvily, B., Perrone, V., & Zaheer, A. (2003). Trust as an organizing principle. Organization Science 14, 91-103 Rotter, J.B. (1967) A new scale for the measurement of interpersonal trust. Journal of Personality 35, 651-665 Schoorman, F.D., Mayer, R.C., & Davis, J.H. (1996). Organizational trust: philosophical perspectives and conceptual definitions. Academy of Management Review 21(2), 337-340. Schoorman, F.D., Mayer, R.C., & Davis, J.H. (2007). An integrative model of organizational trust: past, present and future. Academy of Management Review 32(2), 344-345. Sitkin, S.B. & George, E. (2005). Managerial trust-building through the use of legitimating formal and informal control mechanisms. International Sociology, 20. 307-338 Williams, M. (2001). In whom we trust: group membership as an affective context for trust development. Academy of Management Review 26, 377-396 Appendix A The following paragraph describes a person WHO MIGHT WORK FOR YOU. J.B. was promoted to his/her current position shortly before you were transferred in as head of department. On paper, J.B. is qualified, but you have some serious kills about his/her skills. J.B. has a Master of Business Administration from a well-respected university and has been in his/her current position for over a year. During this time, you have found some very surprising mistakes and oversights in J.B.’s work. J.B. doesn’t seem to have a grasp of how the company operates and what his/her role s supposed to be. When you have tried to explain these things, J.B. claims to understand. However, J.B.s work doesn’t seem to show it. J.B. really likes you and bends over backwards to help you out whenever possible. All of J.B.’s peers seem to like him/her, and J.B. has gained a bit of a reputation among them and the customers for being very fair. Please answer the following questions about how you perceive J.B. Petrified 1 2 3 Neutral 4 5 6 Completely Comfortable 7 1 How comfortable would you be in turning a project over to J.B. that was very important to you if you could not monitor what he or she did? Strongly Disagree 1 2 3 Neutral 4 5 6 Strongly agree 7 2 J.B. is very capable of performing his/her job. 3 J.B. is well qualified. 4 Sound principles seem to guide J.B.’s actions. 5 I would not have to wonder whether J.B. will stick to his word. 6 J.B. would go out of his/her way to help me. 7 J.B. would not knowingly do anything to hurt me. Appendix B The following paragraph describes a person FOR WHOM YOU MIGHT WORK in a job that is very important to you.. You’ve worked for Taylor for about a year. Taylor has always been very honest with you and shown a genuine concern for others as well as the profitability of the business. Taylor has always been particularly good to you, and it’s clear that Taylor likes and respects you. He/she frequently has problems getting the bills paid and customers served on time and does not seem to manage the company’ finances very well. Taylor does not seem to have clear objectives about what things are important for the operation of the business Please answer the following questions about how you perceive Taylor. Petrified 1 2 3 Neutral 4 5 6 Completely Comfortable 7 8 How comfortable would you be in turning your destiny in the company over to Taylor if you could not monitor what he or she did? Strongly Disagree 1 2 3 Neutral 4 5 6 Strongly agree 7 9 Taylor is very capable of performing his/her job. 10 Taylor is well qualified. 11 Sound principles seem to guide Taylor’s actions. 12 I would not have to wonder whether Taylor will stick to his word. 13 Taylor would go out of his/her way to help me. 14 Taylor would not knowingly do anything to hurt me. Read More