Exploring the linkages among employee communication, relational trust, and ethical organizational climates in employee-organizational relationships.

摘要

The purpose of this dissertation was to investigate the relationship between day-to-day employee communication within an organization and employees' trust in their organization and their perceptions of ethical organizational climate types. Specifically, the study examined the relationships among employee communication indicators (accountability, secrecy, participation, and substantial information), employees' trust in their organizations, and five different ethical organizational climates (caring, instrumental, law and code, rules, and independence), using trust as a mediator between communication and climates. Three hundred five full-time employees from seven organizations representing different industries and sizes agreed to participate in this study.;This study significantly showed how employees' perceptions of employee communication practices, employees' trust, and employees' perceptions of ethical organizational climate types are significantly related, both directly and indirectly. Of the four constructs of employee communication, accountability and participation showed positive relationships with employees' trust, while secrecy had a negative relationship with trust. Employees' trust had positive relationships with caring and rules climates, but a negative relationship with an instrumental climate. Finally, accountability had an indirect relationship with a caring climate through employees' developed trust. Secrecy had direct and indirect relationships with an instrumental climate. Participation also had direct and indirect relationships with a caring climate. On the other hand, substantial information had only direct relationships with both rules and law and code climates. This empirical study is meaningful in that it brings attention to how public relations practice can contribute to employee-organizational relationships. It also clearly shows how public relations practices are tied to organizational contexts.