Trust Profiles: Associations With Psychological Need Satisfaction, Work Engagement, and Intention to Leave.

Marita Heyns,Sebastiaan Rothmann

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.563542

Abstract

The study aimed to identify trust profiles in the work domain and to study how these patterns related to psychological need satisfaction, work engagement, and intentions to leave. A cross-sectional survey with a convenience sample (N = 298) was used. The Behavioral Trust Inventory, the Work-related Basic Need Satisfaction Scale, the Work Engagement Scale, and the Turnover Intention Scale were administered. The results showed four trust profiles: skeptic, reliance-based, moderately cautious, and optimistic trustors represented participants' responses on behavioral trust. Skeptic and optimistic trustors (who represented about 50% of the sample) differed primarily regarding their reliance and disclosure intensity. The other two trust profiles (representing the other 50% of the sample) reflected higher reliance and lower disclosure or lower reliance and higher disclosure. Psychological need satisfaction (comprised of autonomy, competence, and relatedness satisfaction) and work engagement were the strongest and intentions to leave the weakest for optimistic trustors (compared to skeptic trustors).

Highlights

Trust can be a powerful social resource in the workplace if we understand how to unlock its benefits
We examined the simultaneous occurrence of the alternative forms of trusting intentions (Gillespie, 2003, 2012)—namely, the willingness to rely on, and disclose to, others—within individuals using latent profile analyses
The person-centered approach toward analyses in this study can address the following questions: a) Can we identify different trust profiles characterized by matching levels of trust across dimensions, and profiles characterized by different levels of trust among dimensions? b) Is a profile with high levels on reliance and disclosure trust items associated with more positive outcomes than a profile with other combinations of reliance and disclosure items? latent profile analysis (LPA) can reveal how various profiles relate to differences in behavioral and other performance-related outcomes because it can capture a more significant number of complex simultaneous interactions between variables more clearly and still render interpretable results (Meyer et al, 2015)

Summary

Introduction

Trust can be a powerful social resource in the workplace if we understand how to unlock its benefits. Studies (Dirks and Ferrin, 2002; Schaubroeck et al, 2011; Nienaber et al, 2015; Bligh, 2017; Choi and Resick, 2017) have shown that trust in higher reports advances followers’ work performance. Nienaber et al (2015) highlight the need to pay more attention to how trust in dyadic workplace relationships unfolds and to focus more on subordinate qualities. They stress that more heterogeneity—such as employing different methodologies—is needed to advance research in this field. Studies taking an individual perspective are sparse, and the way trust as the representation of conflicting priorities within an individual unfolds is mostly unknown (Cheng et al, 2017)

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Conclusion