ABSTRACT
The
purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between organisational
trust and employees’ job satisfaction. Three research questions were raised and
three hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. The survey research design
was adopted while 300 employees from Ecobank Nigeria Limited comprised the
samples used for the study. The questionnaire was used as method of data
collection. The questionnaire was validated by the research supervisor and
experts in the field of statistics. A Cronbach Alpha Reliability Coefficient
was used to ensure internal consistency of the instrument, which yielded a high
reliability coefficient. The data collected was analysed used mean and standard
deviation as well as Pearson Product moment correlation Coefficient. The result
obtained revealed that there is a significant relationship between
organisational trust and job satisfaction. The result also revealed that there
is a significant relationship between organisational trust and organisational
commitment and that there is a significant relationship between job
satisfaction and organisational commitment. Based on the result, it was
recommended that there should be an improvement on the levels of trust given to
employees within the levels of management and that responsibility should be
given to them with less supervision.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION1.1 Background of the Study
The
concept of trust has been discussed for years, especially since 1980s, it
begins to receive consideration in the field of management and organizational behaviour
(Lewicki et al., 1998). In recent years, researchers emphasize the role of
trust in organizational life (Tan and Tan, 2000). Organizations experience
crisis which are attributed to economic, social or political reasons, but
mostly there are serious problems of trust behind these crisis (Erdem, 2003).
Although there is a consensus between researchers that trust is an important
element of management, they define trust distinctly (Hosmer, 1995). Robinson
(1996), defines trust as believing that the other party will not work against
him or her and will not stand in the way of his or her interests. Fukuyama
(2000), defines trust as expectations that arise in societies where the members
share common norms, behave honestly and cooperate with each other. On the other
hand, Yılmaz and Kabaday (2000), describes trust as the beliefs about the
unselfishness of the other party, readiness to risk-taking and dependency at a
certain level. Studies reveal that the most important discrimination about
organizational trust is the distinction between setting one’s trust in an
individual and in the organization (Blomqvist et al., 2003). “Trusting
somebody” and “trusting an organization‟ are different concepts (Doney and
Cannon, 1997). An employee working in an organization can trust the
organization and the other people in organization at different levels (Nyhan
and Marlowe, 1997).
It
has been argued that trust is a key stone of social relations between
individuals and organizations, player can benefit mutually from the trust
(Costa, 2003). Researchers argue that only when an employee feels safe about
himself/herself then he or she can perform higher and gets higher satisfaction.
Phuong (2006) identified trust as a critical ingredient to enhance
organizational effectiveness and competitive advantage in the competition for
human talents, job satisfaction, and the long-term stability and wellbeing of
organizational members. Trust has been connected with perceptions of equality
and precision in performance evaluations, as well as playing an important role
in empowerment both of which contribute to lower levels of disagreement and
augmented worker performance (Ristig, 2009, 660). Organizational efficiency is
up to level of trust. Trust was related with useful decision making as a result
of sharing ideas, information, and feelings, organizational consistency, and
increased productivity (Laschinger, 2002, 64).
The
literature suggests that one antecedent to trust is employee perception whether
management is competent and credible. This character based perception of trust
suggests that employees make inferences about their leader’s character, such as
integrity or dependability, which in turn affects their level of trust
(Reychav, Sharkie, 2010, 231). The literature suggests that communicating and modelling
important values and encouraging staff to adopt them and pursue a shared
purpose, were practices that were likely to be antecedents to the building of
trust, because management’s moral values are likely to be reflected in their
company’s human resource policies and practices. Developing a moral and value
driven collective vision aligns leader and employee actions and focuses them on
the achievement of shared goals. Under this influence, employees may view
leaders in an idealized way, causing them to identify with the leader, trust
the leader and be inspired by the vision of what can be achieved through extra-personaleffort.
These authors argument is that employees are motivated to perform beyond
expectations through employee trust and respect in their leader (Reychav,
Sharkie, 2010, 231). Trust is a major component in an individual’s decision to
share knowledge and in trustfully environments, individuals and groups may be
inclined to share knowledge and act cooperatively. High trust situations also
allow individuals to share their ideas without the disadvantage risk of having
these ideas subjected to derision (Reychav, Sharkie, 2010, 232).
In addition to
trust, organisations should be concerned about job satisfaction, which Rowden
(2002) considered an indicator of organizational members’ emotional well-being
and psychological health. Research has shown that job satisfaction is
influenced by the level of pay and performance, employee benefits, training,
recruiting, learning curve inefficiencies, reduction in the client base, job
design, life satisfaction, autonomy, growth satisfaction, satisfaction with co-workers,
satisfaction with supervisors, and customer satisfaction (Comm & Mathaisel,
2000).
Organizations
that see the value of their employees create a culture of mutual trust among organisational
members and between management and employees. These organisations are known as
high performance organisations (Phillips, 1997). Trust inside organisations
directly affects profits, innovation, and organizational effectiveness (Lynch,
2001); however, evidence seems to indicate that trust in both public and
private organisations has been declining for several decades (Kramer, 1999).
Trust is a foundation for social order within and beyond organisations,
especially in an increasingly complex, global, fast-paced business environment
(Thoms, Dose, & Scott, 2002) and has a number of important benefits for
organisations and their members. For example, trust plays a paramount role in
the creation and development of the psychological contract that binds an
employee to the organization, and it can play a key role in explaining
employee’s attitudes and behaviours at work (Robinson, 1996).
Trust is
particularly important for organisations competing in the global marketplace in
which there are uncertainty and risk because partners’ culture, values, and
goals may be very different (Huff & Kelly, 2003). “High levels of
organizational trust can critically reduce litigation charges and transaction
costs; and high trust cultures minimize the potential for destructive and
litigated conflict, unnecessary bureaucratic control and administrative
expenditures, and expensive overhead” (Shockley-Zalabak, Ellis, & Winograd,
2000, p. 3).
Employees in organisations may be motivated to
contribute their ideas and talents and may be quite satisfied with their jobs
in an environment that fosters organizational trust and growth of employees and
where their knowledge, skills and abilities are valued and fully utilized.
According to Thoms et al. (2002) as cited by Phuong (2006), as the demand for
skilled workers increases, creating a satisfied workforce has important
implications for organizations. This is because, a dissatisfied employees will
not only be a liability to him/herself, but will also be liability to his/her
co-workers and by extension, the organization. High performance organisations
are believed to trust their employees and provide their employees with proper
empowerment to perform their duties. This empowerment requires management to
entrust the work force with responsibility and authority. Without trust, people
assume self-protective, defensive postures that inhibit learning (Costigan,
Ilter, & Berman, 1998). An organizational climate of trust enables
employees to submit their ideas and feelings, use each other as resources, and
learn together. Without trust people have a tendency to keep to themselves,
rather than share their thoughts, thereby, inhibiting creativity (Jordan,
1999).
High performance
organisations can offer employees the opportunity to perform to their full
capacity, share performance information, engage in the decision-making process,
and encourage innovative and imaginative approach to achieve business results
and organizational goals. This sharing of performance information may provide
employees with the business knowledge they need to perform their jobs well,
enjoy their duties, be satisfied with their jobs, and can provide good
communication and customer services. Dalton (2000) reported that high performance
organisations are designed to bring out the best in people and to create an
exceptional capability to deliver high-end results.
Phuong (2006),
quoting the U.S. Department of Labour’s Office of the American Workplace (1994)
states that job satisfaction, employee commitment to high quality, and
increased customer satisfaction would likely result when employees are allowed
to make informed decisions and to involve in information sharing. Today’s
organizations require structures that allow employees to act with initiative in
order to take advantage of available opportunities (Simons, 1995). In today’s
competitive environment, one of the foremost conditions required for
organizations to be able to sustain their presence is their ability to provide
an environment of trust that allows employees to actively participate in the
decision making process (Wech, 2002). In his research, Zand (1972) has shown
that in groups where the level of trust is high, individuals‟ skills for
elucidating and clarifying objectives and problems were higher, and that they
were able to generate distinctly higher number of alternatives compared to
groups with low levels of trust. Suspicion dominates in an environment lacking
trust, which in turn leads to individuals evading each other (Shaw, 1997).
Those working in organizations with low levels of trust are subject to stress,
and they feel the need to continuously look out for themselves and to justify
the validity of the decisions they make (İslamoğlu et al., 2007). In this
context, it is considered that in organizations with a low level of trust, it
becomes difficult for employees to use initiative and to make effective
decisions by evaluating alternatives in a sound fashion.
According to
Usikalu, Ogunleye & Effiong (2015), organizational trust and Job
satisfaction are some of the important factors that may influence employees’
job performance. Poor performing employees not only do not provide expected
results, but their negative behaviour may distract others from doing their jobs
and reduce other staff credibility (Banfield, Richmond & McCroskey, 2006).
Individuals want
to work in an environment of trust and respect where they have the ability to
make contributions to the organisational goals and objectives. They want to be
able to have the opportunity to show management that they can accomplish a task
with the creativity obtained from working in teams. High performance
organisations offer individuals the opportunity to obtain the level of success
they desire. According to the U.S. Department of Labour Office of the American Workplace
(2004), workers gain the opportunity to make informed decisions that will
affect the service or product they offer. When combined with information
sharing, the result is greater job satisfaction and employee commitment to high
quality and increased customers satisfaction. (p.2)
High performance
organisation shares any information regarding the organisation with their
workers. This sharing provides workers with the knowledge they need to perform
their job effectively and also enjoy what they are doing. Business survival
requires organisations to continue to learn and trust each other (Adams, 2005);
however, employees in Nigerian banks rarely trust their organisations, this is
because, their job is quite not secured. Trust particularly between labour and
management, is considered important to organisational success and is an
ingredient for competitive advantage (Rousseau, 1996). Trust is needed for
employee empowerment to occur. Dew (as cited in Peter, Brynes, Choi, Fegan,
& Miller, 2002) found that, empowering employees will result in greater job
satisfaction. Empowerment in creates in employees a sense of ownership and a
sense of being proud of their work and their organisation. In addition to
trust, job satisfaction is viewed as an important organisational factor
(Muchinsky, 1990), but according to Rowden (2015), “Job satisfaction is one of
the most widely researched yet least understood phenomena in organisation today.
Herzberg’s
theory proposes that managers need to focus on factors associated with the work
itself or outcomes directly derived from it, such as promotional opportunities,
opportunities for personal growth, recognition, responsibility, and achievement
and proposes that employees are likely to dissatisfy with their jobs,
concerning the quality of their supervision, pay, organisational policies,
physical working conditions, relations with others, and job security (Robbins,
2003). Also, Argyris (1973) proposes that organisations should seek to increase
openness, trust, risk-taking, and expression of feelings and should develop the
belief that human growth is important, for when mistrust in organisations
rises, learning will not occur.
Organisations
that have the ability to develop mistrusting relationship will have a
competitive advantage (Huff & Kelly, 2003). According to Shockley-Zalabak,
Ellis, & Winograd (2000), increased job satisfaction, the ability to
innovate, and the ability to identify with a successful organisation, all are related
to perceptions of trust. They also emphasised that organisations need to
monitor trust levels, especially during times of rapid change. According to
Zauderer (2002), one of the highest accomplishments of an organisation is to
build a workforce in which employees feel included and welcomed and work together
with mutual respect in order to enhance individual and organisational
productivity. This workplace will be instrumental in attracting and retaining
quality employees, thereby providing collective energy for strengthening
organisational performance. This study is therefore aimed to examine the
relationship between organisational trust and employees’ job satisfaction in
Nigerian banking industry.
Researchers has
found through pilot study that many managers do not recognize the importance of
employees’ trust and its effect on job satisfaction, on the other hand some
managers belief that employee’ empowerment will reduce their authority. Trust
in the workplace is an often-misunderstood concept. Organisational trust is a
term that many managers and organizations think they understand, but few
actually do, and even fewer really put into practice.
A lot of studies
have focused on the relationships between organizational trust and employee’s
job satisfaction but none/few has actually focused on the banking industry
especially, Ecobank Nigeria Limited. Thus, this study searched for correlations
among and between organizational trust and employee’s job satisfaction in the
banking industry, using Ecobank Nigeria Limited as a case study. Hopefully,
this study can help managers in Ecobank Nigeria Limited understand the needs of
the staff and the factors that affect their job satisfaction so that they can
modify or establish effective human resource systems accordingly.
The following
research questions has been raised to guide the study:
1.
What is the level of
trust among employees in Ecobank Nigeria Limited?
2.
What is the level of
job satisfaction among employees in Ecobank Nigeria Limited
3.
Is there relationship
between organisational trust and employees’ job satisfaction in Ecobank Nigeria
Limited?
4.
What is the influence
of organisational trust on organisational commitment?
5.
What is the influence
of employees’ job satisfaction on organisational commitment?
The following
null hypotheses has been formulated to guide the study:
1.
There is no significant
relationship between organisational trust and employees’ job satisfaction?
2.
There is no significant
relationship between organisational trust and organisational commitment
3.
There is no significant
relationship between employees’ job satisfaction and organisational commitment
The objective of
this research is to examine the effect of organisational trust on employees’
job satisfaction. Specifically, the study will:
1.
Determine the level of
trust among employees in Ecobank Nigeria Limited.
2.
Assess the level of job
satisfaction among employees in Ecobank Nigeria Limited
3.
Examine the
relationship between organisational trust and employees job satisfaction in
Ecobank Nigeria Limited
4.
Examine the influence
of organisational trust on organisational commitment
5.
Examine the influence
of employees’ job satisfaction on organisational commitment
The result of
this study will be useful to both the management of the bank and the employees.
The study will
be of great benefit to the management of the bank as they will be exposed to
the ways they can build trust among their staff and hence, increase their
output.
Through the
findings of the study, employees will understand ways they can enhance their
performance for the growth of the organisation.
Lastly, the
study will contribute to existing knowledge base of organisational researches
by providing a broad picture of a wide range of variables affecting
organisational commitment.
Organisational
Trust: “Positive expectations
individuals have about the intent and behaviours of multiple organisational
members based on organisational roles, relationships, experiences and
interdependencies” (Slockley, Zalabak, Ehis and Winograd, 2000:36).
Job
Satisfaction: “A pleasurable or
positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one’s job or job
experiences” (Locke, 1976, p. 1300).
================================================================
Item Type: Project Material | Attribute: 88 pages | Chapters: 1-5
Format: MS Word | Price: N3,000 | Delivery: Within 30Mins.
================================================================
No comments:
Post a Comment