The Central Role of Communication in Developing Trust and its Effect on Employee Involvement proves that trust is closely correlated with organizational openness leading to employee involvement. 218 employees of an organization within the oil service industry participated in this research. Six hypotheses were tested to come to this conclusion:
1) Quality of information will be positively associated with higher trust
2) Receiving enough information will be positively associated with higher trust
3) Higher trust will be positively associated with perceptions of organizational openness
4) Organizational openness will be positively associated with involvement in organizational goals
5) Perceived organizational openness will mediate the relationship between trust and employee involvement
6) Trust will mediate the relationships among quality of information and enough information and perceived organizational openness
Of the 112 questions included in the survey, 11 were demographic variables. The communication methods were sources of information, channels of communication, receiving information, sending information, follow up on sources of information sent and received, quality of information, organizational communication relationships. The independent variables analyzed were organizational openness, trust, quality of information, adequacy of information. These were measured against one dependent variable of employee involvement. Hypothesis 1 was proved correct in that the quality of information leads to trust; r=.37 for coworkers (CW), r=.57 for supervisors (S), and r=.43 for top managers (TM). Hypothesis 2 stated that being provided with adequate information would lead to more trust. Only a minor correlation was found; r=.13 (CW), r=.17 (S), and r=.29 (TM). Hypothesis 3 indicated that trust can be gained through organizational openness; r=.26 (CW), r=.39 (S), r=.33 (TM). Hypothesis 4 proved that organizational openness was positively associated with employee involvement, r=.37.
Source: The Central Role of Communication in Developing Trust and its Effect on Employee Involvement
Hypothesis 5 utilized multivariate regression models (Table 2) to determine if organizational openness would lead to trust and employee involvement. Trust predicts organizational openness which has a direct effect on employee involvement. Hypothesis 6 was proven correct (Table 2); trust can be predicted by the quality of information with effects organizational openness.
This study showed that the relationship between communication and trust is context related and interconnected, making it difficult to have one without the other. All-in-all, trust was very closely tied to perceptions of organizational openness, which as a result, predicted employee involvement.
Source: The Central Role of Communication in Developing Trust and its Effect on Employee Involvement
It is a common belief that communication is key to developing and managing teams, getting people to work cooperatively, and motivating them to be engaged in an organization. However, the recommendations for communication rarely explain why. Typically it is just common sense to believe that communication is all you need, but this study goes on to investigate and explain why communication is key by testing the role of building trust through open communication. Open communication builds a sense of trust and that, in turn, creates employee engagement. Of the six hypotheses that were tested, all were proven correct except for one: (hypothesis 2) receiving enough information will be positively associated with higher trust. Sometimes it is perceived that the more that is said, the more information that is given, and thus lead to more trust. This study showed that there was little correlation between the two, which indicates that its not about the quantity, but rather the quality. Based on this study, when a team has trust in its manager, the team is more likely to feel engaged and valued, therefore leading to a sense of motivation as described by Dan Ariely in his talk titled, Predictably Irrational: Basic Human Motivations.
The study proves that there is a link between communication and trust, however there are limitations within the research. 218 employees from different departments responded to the survey, however all respondents were from one single organization. The evidence could be strengthened if other organizations in different industries were included. The sample does not represent the demographics of larger organizations, employees were selected from the human resource department. The single response item was the only measurement used to illustrate the correlation between trust and communication; a multiple variable measurement could increase the accuracy of this research. Communication alone does not increase trust; the correlation is related to the quality and delivery of communication. In addition, the study does not define quality; what one perceives as “quality” might not be the same as another which therefore, can lead to skewed results.
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