Organizational Structure Elements as Building Blocks for Trust: A study on the effects of organizational structure elements on employees’ organizational trust.

Fostering trust in organizations is challenging and a central concern for modern-day leaders and academics alike. Trust comes on foot and goes away on horseback, as illustrated by many organizations that struggle to build trust relationships with employees and external stakeholders. A growing body of management research emphasizes the pivotal role of trust in employee retention, productivity, learning, and more. Often, the focus lies with leadership and culture in relation to trust. This article contributes to this debate by investigating the research gap of what organizational structure elements influence employees’ organizational trust in the Dutch context through a survey conducted among 110 Dutch employees of public and private organizations. The findings revealed that structural design significantly impacts trust dynamics. Specialization and span of control emerged as positive predictors of trust, while centralization and hierarchy negatively influenced trust. Notably,...Show moreFostering trust in organizations is challenging and a central concern for modern-day leaders and academics alike. Trust comes on foot and goes away on horseback, as illustrated by many organizations that struggle to build trust relationships with employees and external stakeholders. A growing body of management research emphasizes the pivotal role of trust in employee retention, productivity, learning, and more. Often, the focus lies with leadership and culture in relation to trust. This article contributes to this debate by investigating the research gap of what organizational structure elements influence employees’ organizational trust in the Dutch context through a survey conducted among 110 Dutch employees of public and private organizations. The findings revealed that structural design significantly impacts trust dynamics. Specialization and span of control emerged as positive predictors of trust, while centralization and hierarchy negatively influenced trust. Notably, formalization and standardization showed no significant effects, as did the hypothesized sectoral differences, indicating that structural predictors of trust have similar effects across the public and private sectors in the Dutch context. By demonstrating the significance of structural design, this study also emphasizes the need for further investigation on why and how organizational structure elements influence employees’ organizational trust in a general context, in supplement to leadership and culture. In addition, the findings offer several actionable insights for organizational leaders.Show less

Leiden University Student Repository

Documents

In Collections

Organizational Structure Elements as Building Blocks for Trust: A study on the effects of organizational structure elements on employees’ organizational trust.