The impact of organizational purpose on the development of trust in organizations.

摘要

This research examined the impact of purpose on the development of trust in organizations. Ten organizations with a total of 574 participants were studied using the Organizational Purpose Survey developed for this study. Causal modeling was used to examine the impacts across the research model. The research model postulated that purpose impacts trust through communication and commitment.; Four purpose types were studied, shareholder-focused purpose, customer-focused purpose, employee-focused purpose, and balanced shareholder/customer/employee purpose. Shareholder-focused purpose was shown to be the least effective in the development of trust. Shareholder-focused purpose was shown to have negative relationships to commitment and trust. It was also shown to be the only purpose type to have positive correlations with negative citizenship behaviors. Both customer-focused purpose and employee-focused purpose had negative correlations with negative citizen behaviors. Customer-focused purpose was shown to have stronger positive impacts on trust than shareholder-focused purpose. Customer-focused purpose did not demonstrate any negative impacts on trust. Employee-focused purpose demonstrated the strongest impacts on trust and did not have any negative impacts.; Manager communications, managers' actions, and goals were all used to communicate the organizational purposes in the organizations studied. However, the communication methods varied by organization. Meaningfulness was the major commitment variable that linked purpose to trust. Loyalty was linked in only one instance.; Two of the findings from this research have significant implications for managers seeking to implement strong purposes for their organizations. First, meaningfulness is proven to be a strong mediator of purpose, effecting the development of trust and consequently can be an important factor for linking purpose and trust in organizations. Second the negative impact of shareholder-focused purpose on trust poses serious concerns as to its usefulness in organizations.; The tool used for assessing the strength of the relationships in the research model was the Organizational Purpose Survey developed for this research. The results of the study validated the use of this tool as an aid to the assessment of the implementation of purpose in organizations.