Trust restoration: an examination of senior managers' attempt to rebuild employee trust

Abstract

This article advances discussions surrounding the extent to which senior management can rebuild damaged trust relationships in a context where the founding principle of respect had been contravened. More specifically, our article is concerned with a senior management team's attempt to regain trust through addressing workplace bullying. The study draws on a quantitative methodology where the population of the case study organisation were surveyed (n = 206) at two points in time (2004 and 2007). The findings revealed that managements’ actions had a significant effect on perceptions of bullying. T‐tests, however, provided only partial support for the notion that trust had improved as a result of management actions. In particular, there were significant differences in the levels of loyalty and benevolent motives and also openness, whereas no significant changes were observed for other dimensions of trust (integrity, competence, consistency and respect).