Commitment to Change: Contributions to Trust in the Supervisor and Work Outcomes

Abstract

There is a lack of empirical evidence on the relationship between commitment to change, trust in organizational authorities, and work outcomes. The purpose of this study is to bring further evidence on the role played by affective and continuance commitment to change on employee’s trust in the supervisor and several work outcomes (turnover intentions, organizational citizenship behaviors, and perceived performance). Participants were 221 employees from several organizations that had undergone major organizational changes. Our results suggest that trust in the supervisor fully mediates the relationship between affective commitment to change and the three work outcomes. Continuance commitment to change was not significantly related to any outcome variables.These key findings bring salience to how employee’s reactions to specific situations (i.e., relevant organizational changes) contribute to the development of social relationships and work outcomes within the organization. The findings are discussed regarding their considerable implications both for managers and researchers.

Leadership Styles in Relation to Employees’ Trust and Organizational Change Capacity

“…Previous literature shows that employees trust in their leadership can lead toward desirable outcomes, such as a higher level of performance (Neves & Caetano, 2009) and greater exchange of ideas and knowledge (Renzl, 2008). In previous literature, trust has been conceptualized in several different ways.…”

“…Trust leads to greater employee confidence in a leader's fair intentions behind the change (Harvey, Royal, & Stout, 2003). Past research demonstrates that trust in leadership is an important element for organizational change (Smollan, 2013), and might be as a consequence or a predecessor of the relationship at work (Neves & Caetano, 2009;Saunders & Thornhill, 2003).…”

The Mediating Effect of Organizational Trust on Human Resource Management and Affective Commitment

“…Beside on social exchange theory, Tan et al (2009) reported trust in organization significantly and fully mediates the relationships between trust in co-worker and affective commitment. Neves et al (2009) found trust in supervisor fully mediates the relationships between affective commitment and employee performance. Hence, the proposed hypothesis is:…”

“…The higher affective commitment is a predictor of the employees' superior performance and strengthens toward employees' trust (Gong et al 2009). While, Neves et al (2009) reported that trust as a full mediation effects on staffing toward performance appraisal and affective commitment. However, the mediation result of the present research is reported that trust partially mediates on the relationship between performance appraisal and affective commitment.…”

“…Hence, staffing constitutes an important part of social exchange relationships in organization which characterize the essential components of affective commitment and trust. Whereas, Neves et al (2009) had hypothesized that trust is full mediate the relationship between selective staffing and commitment.…”