Structure and functions of organizational trust in employees’ notions

• Main Author: Marina M. Zavartseva
• Format: Article
• Language: Russian
• Published: Lomonosov Moscow State University 2016-06-01
• Series: Nacionalʹnyj Psihologičeskij Žurnal
• Subjects: work psychology; organizational trust; notions; psychosemantics; content-analysis
• Online Access: http://npsyj.ru/pdf/npj-no22-2016/npj_no22_2016_094-104.pdf

This article investigates the structure and functions of organizational trust, examining the content of employees’ subjective notions about organizational trust and it’s role in organization’s functioning. The combination of direct (R.B.Shaw’s trust assessment survey) and indirect (the semantic differential scale; the contentanalysis of the checklist of trust structural components) methods was used. Using data on 378 employees of different organizations (commercial, medical, educational) we distinguished subjective images of organization in groups with opposite estimation of organizational trust’s level. The study indicated that organizational trust’s structure is not linear, and exposed two main functions of high level of organizational trust – idealization and positive emotional estimation both of actual organization (that is currently place of employment). Obtained data provide basis for express-diagnostic of trust in organization and might be used for design of psychological training aiming high organization’s efficacy.