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The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of organizational structure on the degree to which supervisors are perceived to be trustworthy by their subordinates. The manner in which subordinates’ personality traits interact with and moderate these relationships is also examined.

A three-part survey was completed by 137 full-time workers from various industries.

Formalization was positively related to subordinates’ perceptions of their supervisors’ trustworthiness and more strongly for subordinates who ranked higher on straightforwardness. Routinization was also positively related but only for subordinates who ranked low on excitement-seeking. Centralization in the form of hierarchy of authority was negatively related and more strongly for subordinates who ranked higher on competence. Routinization for subordinates who ranked high on excitement-seeking, centralization in the form of participation in decision-making, and span of control were not related.

Before pursuing trust-building efforts, supervisors should consider whether and in what way they may already be perceived to be trustworthy by their subordinates based on the structure of their organization and the personality traits of their subordinates.

This study is the first to examine the main effects of organizational structure on subordinates’ perceptions of their supervisors’ trustworthiness.

This study aimed to examine the predictive effects of trustworthiness attributes (i.e. benevolence, integrity, and ability) on trust‐in‐supervisor.

A field survey using a structured questionnaire was used to gather data from 107 white‐collar employees from diverse organizations in Malaysia. The data were analysed using hierarchical multiple regression analysis.

The results showed that perceptions of supervisor benevolence, integrity, and ability predicted trust‐in‐supervisor both directly and interactively. Further analysis revealed that integrity and ability interacted in a compensatory manner to predict trust‐in‐supervisor when benevolence was high but not when it was low.

Study limitations include the use of self‐report cross‐sectional data. The findings underscore the importance of looking beyond statistical models that test only for main and two‐way interaction effects in research examining trustworthiness attributes. Researchers should consider examining three‐way interaction effects or run the risk of having a misspecified model. Also, research to determine the relative importance of trustworthiness attributes and the conditions under which one attribute is given more weight than another is needed.

Supervisors should be made aware of the importance of treating their subordinates with benevolence. Nevertheless, because benevolence is a necessary but insufficient condition for fostering trust, employers must ensure that their supervisors have high integrity and ability or, at the very least, one of these attributes.

This study highlighted the importance of examining higher order effects in research examining trustworthiness attributes and provides what is perhaps the first empirical test of how benevolence, integrity, and ability interact to predict trust‐in‐supervisor.

Though contemporary police organizational behavior scholars often limit their measure of organizational justice to just supervisory procedural justice, this study examines how the additional dimensions of supervisor trustworthiness and peer procedural justice compare with procedural justice in their role shaping police outcomes.

A survey of 638 police officers in Zagreb, Croatia, was used to regress three separate dimensions of organizational justice on key officer attitudes toward their duties.

The authors found that supervisor trustworthiness and peer procedural justice were the dominant predictors of officers' rule compliance and trust in the public.

The findings suggest that police scholars and practitioners seeking to better understand the role of officer judgments on resisting agency reform should consider the precedent in corporate behavior research to specifically test the unique roles of multiple components of police organizational behavior on policing outcomes.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the mechanism through which perceived empowerment practices in a firm influence employees’ organizational identification. Specifically, the authors posit the mediating role of leader‒member exchange (LMX) and the moderating role of leader trustworthiness in the relationship.

Data were collected through survey from 236 white-collar employees working in 20 private companies in Turkey. The authors tested the model using hierarchical regression and conditional process analysis.

Findings of this study are as follows: first, LMX mediates the relationship between empowerment practices and organizational identification, second, leader integrity, a dimension of trustworthiness, moderates the relationship between empowerment practices and LMX and the relationship between LMX and organizational identification and, third, leader integrity moderates the indirect effect of empowerment practices on organizational identification via LMX. These direct and indirect effects are stronger when leaders have higher integrity than when they have lower integrity.

This study enhances the understanding of the mechanism through which empowerment practices influence employees’ organizational identification.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine supervisor-subordinate relationships and their impact on performance appraisal in Croatia. Specifically, we were interested in examining how supervisor-subordinate relationships impact subordinate perceptions of performance evaluation and the subordinate's reactions to the performance evaluation.

This paper uses matched data from a sample of supervisors and subordinates (n = 53) in a leading organization in the hospitality industry in Croatia, as well as objective performance appraisal data to examine the impact of supervisor-subordinate relationships on subordinate reactions to performance appraisal.

The key findings of this study include (1) supervisor trustworthiness determines the quality of their relationship with subordinates and leads to interpersonal liking, and (2) supervisor-subordinate relationship quality has a significant impact on subordinate reactions to performance appraisal process and outcomes.

The overall sample size (n = 53) of this study is small, and limits our ability to make generalizations beyond a point. Also, since the sample included only Croatian individuals, the findings maybe an artifact of the fact that they all hold similar values. Future studies should examine these relationships in supervisor-subordinate dyads comprised of individuals of different cultural backgrounds.

Supervisors should attempt to have high quality relationships with most, if not all, subordinates, as this would lead to higher acceptance of the performance appraisal process, which can impact future performance. Also, trustworthiness is closely related to the subordinate's perception of the quality of relationship he/she shares with the supervisor.

This is the first known paper to empirically study performance appraisal processes and relationships in Croatia, which also included both supervisor and subordinate perspectives.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the impact of workplace empowerment and staff nurses’ perceptions of trustworthiness in their supervisor as determinators of organizational commitment.

Data were collected from 189 nurses working at Portuguese public hospitals.

Results indicate that an empowering work context was significantly predictive of nurses’ affective commitment and on the perceptions of trustworthiness of the supervisor. The employees who understand that they have access to factors of empowerment (formal power, informal power, resources, opportunity, support and information), and feel that they can influence the organization where they work, are in a better position to establish affective connections with the organization, as well as to perceive their supervisor as trustworthy.

One limitation relates to the generalization of the study’s findings outside the national context.

Organizations must meet the conditions that contribute to increasing the organizational commitment of healthcare professionals when developing policies for human resources since the emotional bond with the organization seems to provide the strength to withstand moments of great difficulties.

This research contributes to the understanding of how fostering empowering and trustful leadership will generate positive effects on job attitudes, even in a particularly difficult context of austerity.

Followers’ perceptions of leader trustworthiness affect their trust in the leader (Colquitt et al., 2007). However, because positive benefits of trust generally accrue when trust is reciprocated, examining when and why followers’ perceptions of leader trustworthiness elicit leader’s trust in followers may provide heuristic and practical value. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to examine if followers’ perceptions of leader trustworthiness elicit leaders’ trust in followers, casting follower’s perceptions of leader–member exchange (LMX) quality as a mediator and their perceptions of empowerment as moderating this mediated relationship.

Followers’ perception of leader trustworthiness was measured at Time 1, followers’ perceptions of empowerment and LMX were measured at Time 2 and leaders’ trust in followers was measured in Time 3. The authors tested the research model with data collected from 347 leader–follower dyads using the three time-lagged surveys as noted above.

Followers’ perceptions of leader trustworthiness and perceptions of empowerment interacted to influence followers’ perceptions of LMX quality, which in turn influenced leaders’ trust in followers. Thus, LMX mediated the trustworthiness–trust relationship and this mediated relationship became stronger at increasing levels of empowerment.

Being trusted by leaders is beneficial to followers. Training managers in behaviors that elicit employees’ perceptions of manager trustworthiness has the potential to accrue benefits to employees, managers and the organization.

This study is the first to demonstrate that followers’ perception of leader trustworthiness resulted in leaders trusting followers. In addition, the results support a mediating role for LMX and a moderating role for empowerment in the development of leader trust in the follower. Understanding when and why leaders trust followers offers important insights about development of trust between followers and leaders. The authors discuss implications for theory and practice.

The purpose of this study is to explore factors that help to determine employee trust in and affective commitment toward the organization.

Data for this study were collected using surveys administered to employees of a company located in the southeastern United States. The final sample included 391 matched supervisor–subordinate dyads.

We found organizational signals of trustworthiness led to affective commitment through increased levels of employee trust. Employees and supervisors who perceived HR professionals to be competent, who felt organizational information distributions were of high quality and who felt the organization disclosed relevant information exhibited higher levels of trust in the organization. Employees showed higher affective commitment when they trusted the organization. We found that supervisor trust directly impacted subordinate affective commitment as well.

These findings help extend signaling theory from the attraction of employees to their retention and help researchers and practitioners alike to understand the organizational trust- and commitment-building process.

This paper comparatively assesses the connections between individual demographic traits, occupational characteristics, and organizational factors and officers' attitudes toward important groups in China and Taiwan.

Survey data used in this study were collected from 722 police officers from mainland China and 531 officers from Taiwan. Multivariate regression analyses were conducted to assess the correlates of police attitudes toward peers, supervisors, and citizens.

The Chinese and Taiwanese officers do not differ in their trust in peers, but the Chinese officers hold significantly more positive views on the trustworthiness of supervisors and citizens compared to the Taiwanese officers. Supervisor justice and organizational identification are significant predictors of officers' attitudes toward all three groups in both countries.

A major limitation revolves around the inability to test and explain exactly why findings from the two groups vary in their ways. Future research should include specific social, political, and cultural predictors.

This study represents one of the few studies that compare police attitudes toward important groups of peers, supervisors, and citizens across nations/cultures.

To investigate relationships between teacher empowerment and interpersonal level trust in the principal.

Trust is a fundamental element in well‐functioning organizations. Studies of empowerment, a motivational construct, have suggested that empowering employees is a key factor in managerial and organizational effectiveness. An instrument was constructed to measure perceived teacher empowerment and level of interpersonal trust in the principal. Established measures of psychological empowerment and affect‐and cognition‐based trust were adapted for use in the study. Elementary school teachers in an urban school district in the USA completed the survey instrument.

Teachers who perceived that they were empowered in their work environments had higher levels of interpersonal trust in their principals. Teachers who found their work personally meaningful, and who reported significant autonomy and substantial influence in their work environments had higher levels of interpersonal trust in principals.

This investigation was delimited by the study sample. Research on the empowerment‐trust relationships should be extended to include middle and high schools, and schools in different regions with a broader range of demographics.

Principals should consider suggested strategies that can strengthen teachers’ perceptions of empowerment, reinforce trustworthy behaviors, and support beliefs in the honesty, integrity, and reliability of supervisors.

The study compliments the limited base of data‐driven research in education and the non‐profit sector that focuses on significant intervening variables associated with trust in organizations.