Developing an Organizational Trust Model Using Grounded Theory

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

• Arezoosadat Hashemiamin ¹
• Gholamreza Malekzadeh ²
• Yaghoob Maharati ²

¹ Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Management, Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran

² Associate Professor, Department of Management, Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran

https://doi.org/10.22067/tmj.2024.86226.1530

Abstract

INTRODUCTION

Organizational trust is one of the most important factors that shape the organization's vision, mission, culture, and values. It originates in employees' evaluations regarding the issue of whether the organization has the authority to respond to its goals and responsibilities and adheres to the accepted ethical principles in its communication with the stakeholders. The problem of organizational trust in Iranian organizations is more visible due to the lack of a model that fits the country's culture and background. The lack of an organizational trust model has created many problems in government organizations. Government organizations are among the organizations that play an important role in the country. These organizations have a tremendous impact on the development of society and people's well-being by making key decisions, making policies, planning, providing essential services, etc. The absence of a native model of organizational trust has led to weak work performance and organizational commitment of the workforce in Iran's government organizations; also, leading employees do not perform their assigned duties well, and have low motivation, work relationships, and job satisfaction. Therefore, due to the vital role of organizational trust in government organizations and the importance of these organizations in society, the present research aim is to present the model of organizational trust in government organizations, with a specialized and comprehensive examination of organizational trust in Khorasan Razavi’s government organizations.
 
2- THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Trust in organizations is divided into individual, interpersonal, and organizational trust. Organizational trust is a multi-level phenomenon that evaluates organization members in conjunction with organization systems to respond to its goals and responsibilities and adhere to accepted ethical principles in communication with its beneficiaries. Although some previous research has examined trust in the organization, especially interpersonal trust, research that specifically focuses on organizational trust, the employees’ trust toward the organization, is rarely seen, and the lack of an organizational trust model, especially in Iranian organizations, has caused numerous problems.
 
3- METHODOLOGY
This is qualitative research based on the grounded theory with a systematic approach. The theoretical saturation criterion was achieved after conducting 17 semi-structured interviews with government organizations' experts. Data analysis was done based on coding processes and using MAXQDA software. To ensure the validity and increase the credibility of the research, the criteria provided by Guba and Lincoln (1994) and to evaluate its strength, the four criteria of appropriateness, relevance, applicability, and modifiability of Strauss and Corbin (1998) were used.
 
4- RESULTS & DISCUSSION
In addition to confirming the results of previous research, this research achieved new findings. Based on these findings, organizational trust in government organizations is created from reliability and predictability based on the causes of trust-building management, trust-building organization, and trust-building employees. Moreover, organizational trust affects the strategy implementation such as ethics-orientation, interactions, regulations, and processes. The consequences of these strategies include enhancing performance regarding the employees' psychological well-being improvement and the organization's productivity. Also, they improve the stakeholders' satisfaction, including the people's satisfaction and the organization's legitimacy. The context of the effective application of these strategies is the internal environment including the atmosphere and physical environment of the organization and the external environment, including the political and economic conditions and national culture. In the meantime, the influence of intervenors, such as organizational conformity and demographic components of the organization on the effectiveness of these strategies should not be ignored.
 
5- CONCLUSIONS & SUGGESTIONS
Considering that the present research dealt with the statistics of the organizational trust model in government organizations and provided outputs in the field of causes, consequences, strategies, context, and intervenors of organizational trust; It can be acknowledged that the proposed model can be used in organizations, especially public ones, as a suitable guide for promoting and developing organizational trust. Managers can thus strengthen employees’ trust in the organization.

Keywords

• Organizational trust
• Government organizations
• Grounded theory

©2025 The author(s). This is an open access article distributed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0)

References

References

Abedi, A., & Shavakhi, A.R. (2010). The Coparison Betwwen Quantitative and Qualitative Research in Behavioral Science. A Quarterly Journal of Strategic, 19(54), 153-168. (In Persain).

Alshaabani, A.; Hamza, K. A., & Rudnák, I. (2021). Impact of diversity management on employees’ engagement: the role of organizational trust and job insecurity. Sustainability, 14(1), 420.

Amid, H. (1984). Amid dictionary. Tehran: Institute of Public Libraries of the country. (In Persain).

Alvani, S. M., & Hosseini, S. S. (2013). A Study on Theoretical Principles, Concepts and Models of Institutional Trust (Organizational). Educational Measurement and Evaluation Studies, 3(4), 105-141. (In Persain).

Bozic, B.; Siebert, S., & Martin, G. (2019). A strategic action fields perspective on organizational trust repair. European Management Journal, 37(1), 58-66.

Bulińska-Stangrecka, H., & Iddagoda, Y. A. (2020). The relationship between inter-organizational trust and employee engagement and performance. Sri Lanka: University of Sri Jayewardenepura.

Creswell, J. W. (2013). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five approaches (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Dahmardeh, M., & Nastiezaie, N. (2019). The Impact of Organizational Trust on Organizational Commitment through the Mediating Variable of Organizational Participation. Public Management Researches, 12(44), 155-180. (In Persain).

Danaeefard, H.; Alvani, S. M., & Azar, A. (2012). Qualitative Research Methodology in Management: A Comprehensive Approach. Tehran: Safar Publications. (In Persain).

Danaeefard, H.; Rajabzadeh, A. & Hasiri, A. (2009). Promoting organizational trust in public sector: Explaining the role of managerial competency. Management Researches, 2(4), 59-90. (In Persain).

Dietz, G., & Den Hartog, D. N. (2006). Measuring trust inside organisations. Personnel review, 35(5), 557-588.

Elewa, A. H., & El Banan, S. H. A. (2019). Organizational culture, organizational trust and workplace bullying among staff nurses at public and private hospitals. International Journal of Nursing Didactics, 9(04), 10-20.

Emami, M.; Jamali, E., & Isfahani, M. (2014). Examining the Relationshp between Organizational Trust and Organizational Creativity. Innovation & Creativity in Human Science, 3(3), 23-44. (In Persain).

FarajPour, A.; Ghasemi, S.; Azadian, A., & Soroush, M. (2020). Assessment of organizational trust in the society of the veterans towards the public organizations. Iranian Journal of Isaar Studies, 1(4), 163-170. (In Persain).

Fazel, A.; Kamalian, A.; Khojasteh, G., & Fazel, A. (2011). The Role of Trust in Organizational Innovativeness: a Study of an Iranian Service Sector Organization. Management and Development Process, 24 (3), 71-89. (In Persain).

Fortino, G.; Fotia, L.; Messina, F.; Rosaci, D., & Sarné, G. M. (2020). Trust and reputation in the internet of things: State-of-the-art and research challenges. IEEE Access, 8(1), 60117-60125.

Gaeeni, A., & Hosseinzadeh, A. (2012). The Trio Paradigms of Positivism, intrepretevitivism and Hermeneutics in Management and Organizatonal Studies. Strategy for Culture, 5(19), 103-138. (In Persain).

Gajda, K. (2020). Factors shaping interorganizational trust in e-commerce based on literature review. Management, 24(1), 23-38.

Glaser, B. G. (2002). Conceptualization: On Theory and Theorizing using Grounded Theory. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 1(2), 23-38.

Guba, E. G., & Lincoln, Y. S. (1994). Competing Paradigms in Qualitative Research. Handbook of Qualitative Research. London & Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publication.

Gustafsson, S.; Gillespie, N.; Searle, R.; Hope Hailey, V., & Dietz, G. (2021). Preserving organizational trust during disruption. Organization studies, 42(9), 1409-1433.

Hakimi, I. (2020). Failure of Organizational Trust by Psychopath Managers: Exploring the Role of Abusive Supervision and Decline of Job Satisfaction. Journal of Human Rersource Studies, 10(2), 75-100. (In Persain).

Hasche, N.; Höglund, L., & Mårtensson, M. (2021). Organizational trust in public organizations–the study of interpersonal trust in both vertical and horizontal relationships from a bidirectional perspective. Public Management Review, 23(12), 1768-1788.

Ilyas, S.; Abid, G., & Ashfaq, F. (2020). Ethical leadership in sustainable organizations: The moderating role of general self-efficacy and the mediating role of organizational trust. Sustainable Production and Consumption, 22, 195-204.

Islam, M. N.; Furuoka, F., & Idris, A. (2021). Mapping the relationship between transformational leadership, trust in leadership and employee championing behavior during organizational change. Asia Pacific Management Review, 26(2), 95-102.

Ismail, H. N.; Kertechian, K. S., & Blaique, L. (2023). Visionary leadership, organizational trust, organizational pride, and organizational citizenship behaviour: A sequential mediation model. Human Resource Development International, 26(3), 264-291.

Jones, G. R., & George, J. M. (1998). The experience and evolution of trust: Implications for cooperation and teamwork. Academy of management review, 23(3), 531-546.

Joo, B. K.; Yoon, S. K., & Galbraith, D. (2023). The effects of organizational trust and empowering leadership on group conflict: psychological safety as a mediator. Organization Management Journal, 20(1), 4-16.

Kennedy, F. A.; Kohlmeyer, J. M., & Parker, R. J. (2009). The roles of organizational justice and trust in a gain-sharing control system. In Advances in accounting behavioral research, 14(2), 1-23.

Kim, J. B. (2019). A study on factors relevant to effects of shared leadership, organizational trust and job performance. Journal of the Korea Convergence Society, 10(7), 183-189.

Klein, H. A.; Lin, M. H.; Miller, N. L.; Militello, L. G.; Lyons, J. B., & Finkeldey, J. G. (2019). Trust across culture and context. Journal of Cognitive Engineering and Decision Making, 13(1), 10-29.

Kvale, Steinar. (1996). Interviews: An Introduction to qualitative research interviewing. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage

Lämsä, A. M. (2006). Development of organizational trust among employees from a contextual perspective. Business Ethics: A European Review, 15, 130-141.

Lee, J. (2001), A Grounded Theory: Integration and Internalization in ERP Adoption and Use, Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation. University of Nebreska, In Proquest UMI Database.

Liu, S. X.; Zhou, Y.; Cheng, Y., & Zhu, Y. Q. (2020). Multiple mediating effects in the relationship between employees’ trust in organizational safety and safety participation behavior. Safety science, 125, 104-121.

Lumineau, F.; Schilke, O., & Wang, W. (2023). Organizational trust in the age of the fourth industrial revolution: Shifts in the form, production, and targets of trust. Journal of Management Inquiry, 32(1), 21-34.

Made, D. (2013). The Influence of Personality and Organizational Culture on Employee Performance Through Organizational Citizenship Behavior. The International Journal of Management, 2(4), 136-148

Maguire, S., & Phillips, N. (2008). Citibankers’ at Citigroup: a study of the loss of institutional trust after a merger. Journal of management studies, 45(2), 372-401.

Maleki, A.; Ghorbani, M.; Nilipour Tabatabei, S.A., & Niroumand, H. (2020). Effect of Organizational Trust Management with Ethical Intelligence Approach on Organizational Citizenship Behavior in the Financial and Credit Institutions of Khorasan Razavi Province, Iran. Geograohical Research, 35(3), 283-292.

Martins, N. (2002). A model for managing trust. International Journal of manpower, 23(8), 754-769.

Mayer, R. C.; Davis, J. H., & Schoorman, F. D. (1995). An integrative model of organizational trust. Academy of management review, 20(3), 709-734.

McKnight, D. H., & Chervany, N. L. (2001). What trust means in e-commerce customer relationships: An interdisciplinary conceptual typology. International journal of electronic commerce, 6(2), 35-59.

Mincu, C. L. (2015). The impact of personal resources on organizational attitudes: Job satisfaction and trust in organization. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 187, 685-689.

Moshabaki Esfahani, A.; Nejat, S., & Khalili palandi, F. (2019). Corporate Citizenship and its Role in Creating Organizational Trust and Organizational Identification. Organizational Culture Management, 17(3), 399-419. (In Persain).

Mühl, J. K. (2014). Organizational trust. Springer International Publishing Switzerland.

Nasiri Walik Bani, F., & Khodayari, A. (2016). Investigating the relationship between perceived organizational support and organizational trust. Journal of Human Resource Management, 6(3), 71-96. (In Persain).

 Nedkovski, V.; Guerci, M.; De Battisti, F., & Siletti, E. (2017). Organizational ethical climates and employee's trust in colleagues, the supervisor, and the organization. Journal of business research, 71, 19-26.

Natow, R. S. (2019). The use of triangulation in qualitative studies employing elite interviews. Qualitative Research, 19(1). 23- 48.

Ozyilmaz, A.; Erdogan, B., & Karaeminogullari, A. (2018). Trust in organization as a moderator of the relationship between self‐efficacy and workplace outcomes: A social cognitive theory‐based examination. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 91(1), 181-204.

Paşamehmetoğlu, A.; Guzzo, R. F., & Guchait, P. (2022). Workplace ostracism: Impact on social capital, organizational trust, and service recovery performance. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management, 50, 119-126.

Patterson, M., Warr, P., West M. (2004). Organizational justice and Company productivity. Journal of Occupational and Organizational psychology, 77. 23- 53.

Robbins, S. P. (2003). organizational Behavior. New Dehli: practice, Hall of India.

Sadeghi Alavije, F.; Shaemi Barzoki, A., & Teimouri, H. (2020). Determining the Impact of Organizational Trust on Organizational Learning with the Mediating Role of Organizational Inertia: The Case of Department of Natural Resources and Watershed Management of Isfahan Province. Strategic Research on Social Problems, 9(2), 1-30. (In Persain).

Sekaran, U., & Bougie, R. (2016). Research methods for business: A skill building approach. John wiley & sons.

Schilke, O.; Reimann, M., & Cook, K. S. (2021). Trust in social relations. Annual Review of Sociology, 47, 239-259.

Silva, P., Moreira, A. C., & Mota, J. (2023). Employees' perception of corporate social responsibility and performance: the mediating roles of job satisfaction, organizational commitment and organizational trust. Journal of Strategy and Management, 16(1), 92-111.

Shahrokhi, H., & Safarnejad, M. (2016). Organizational trust of sports and youth general office of Khorasan Razavi Province. Scientific research conference on new findings of Iran's management, entrepreneurship and education sciences. (In Persain).

Sharieff, G. Q. (2021). Building organizational trust during a pandemic. NEJM Catalyst Innovations in Care Delivery, 2(1), 23-45.

Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. M. (1998). Basics of Qualitative Research: Techniques and Procedures for Developing Grounded Theory (2nd Edition). Thousand Oaks: Sage Publication.

Tepper, B. J. (2007). Abusive supervision in work organizations: Review, synthesis, and research agenda. Journal of management, 33(3), 261-289.

Tyler, T. R. (2003). Trust within organisations. Personnel review, 32(5), 556-568.

Utomo, H. J. N.; Irwantoro, I.; Wasesa, S., Purwati, T.; Sembiring, R., & Purwanto, A. (2023). Investigating The Role of Innovative Work Behavior, Organizational Trust, Perceived Organizational Support: An Empirical Study on SMEs Performance. Journal of Law and Sustainable Development, 11(2), 417-432.

Vanhala, M.; Heilmann, P., & Salminen, H. (2016). Organizational trust dimensions as antecedents of organizational commitment. Knowledge and Process Management, 23(1), 46-61.

Verburg, R. M.; Nienaber, A. M.; Searle, R. H., Weibel; A., Den Hartog, D. N., & Rupp, D. E. (2018). The role of organizational control systems in employees’ organizational trust and performance outcomes. Group & organization management, 43(2), 179-206.

Yilmaz, A., & Atalay, C. (2009). A theoretical analyze on the concept of trust in organizational life. European Journal of Social Sciences, 8(2), 341-352.

Yu, M.C.; Mai, Q.; Tsai, S.B., & Dai, Y. (2018) An empirical study on the organizational trust, employee-organization relationship and innovative Behavior from the integrated perspective of social exchange and organizational sustainability. Sustainability. 10(3): 864-908.

Zak, P. J. (2017). The neuroscience of trust. Harvard business review, 95(1), 84-90.