Antecedents of trust in supervisors, subordinates, and peers

Dana L. Knoll; Harjinder Gill

doi:10.1108/02683941111124845

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Journal of Managerial Psychology

ISSN: 0268-3946

Online from: 1986

Subject Area: Human Resource Management

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Antecedents of trust in supervisors, subordinates, and peers

Document Information:
Title:	Antecedents of trust in supervisors, subordinates, and peers
Author(s):	Dana L. Knoll, (University of Guelph, Guelph, Canada), Harjinder Gill, (University of Guelph, Guelph, Canada)
Citation:	Dana L. Knoll, Harjinder Gill, (2011) "Antecedents of trust in supervisors, subordinates, and peers", Journal of Managerial Psychology, Vol. 26 Iss: 4, pp.313 - 330
Keywords:	Canada, Employees, Interpersonal relations, Line managers, Organizational culture, Trust
Article type:	Research paper
DOI:	10.1108/02683941111124845 (Permanent URL)
Publisher:	Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Acknowledgements:	The first study was based on the first author's Master's thesis and was presented at the 23rd annual conference of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, San Francisco, California, April 2008. The Canadian Foundation for Innovation (CFI) supported this research with a grant to the second author. The authors thank Serge Desmarais, Brian Earn, and David Stanley for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.
Abstract:	Purpose – The purpose of this paper is first, to assess the generalizability of the Integrative Model of organizational trust to the development of workplace trust in upward, downward, and lateral relationships. Second, it examines the relative importance of ability, benevolence, and integrity in predicting trust in supervisor, subordinate, and peer. Design/methodology/approach – Human resource professionals (n=187) from two sources (a human resource professionals’ organization and a large Canadian corporation) responded to an online survey. Findings – The results indicate that the integrative model of organizational trust was applicable to trust in supervisor, subordinate, and peer. The results also suggest that the relative importance of ability, benevolence, and integrity in predicting trust differed according to the trustor-trustee dyad. Research limitations/implications – A potential limitation of this study is that data regarding trust in each of the three referents (supervisor, subordinate, and peer) were obtained from the same raters. These findings need to be replicated with multi-source data. Social implications – Given the necessity of trust for positive cooperative relationships, a better understanding of how to foster trustworthiness among individuals would be a benefit to society. Practical implications – The findings provide valuable information for the development of effective and efficient trust-building strategies for upward, downward, and lateral workplace relationships. Originality/value – The paper describes a study which simultaneously examined trust in supervisor, trust in subordinate, and trust in peer. It also assessed the relative importance of the antecedents of trustworthiness across referent dyads using the relative weight analysis procedure strategy.