Developing an Organizational Trust Model Using Grounded Theory

Organizational trust is one of the most important factors that shape the organization's vision, mission, culture, and values. It originates in employees' evaluations regarding the issue of whether the organization has the authority to respond to its goals and responsibilities and adheres to the accepted ethical principles in its communication with the stakeholders. The problem of organizational trust in Iranian organizations is more visible due to the lack of a model that fits the country's culture and background. The lack of an organizational trust model has created many problems in government organizations. Government organizations are among the organizations that play an important role in the country. These organizations have a tremendous impact on the development of society and people's well-being by making key decisions, making policies, planning, providing essential services, etc. The absence of a native model of organizational trust has led to weak work performance and organizational commitment of the workforce in Iran's government organizations; also, leading employees do not perform their assigned duties well, and have low motivation, work relationships, and job satisfaction. Therefore, due to the vital role of organizational trust in government organizations and the importance of these organizations in society, the present research aim is to present the model of organizational trust in government organizations, with a specialized and comprehensive examination of organizational trust in Khorasan Razavi’s government organizations.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK:

Trust in organizations is divided into individual, interpersonal, and organizational trust. Organizational trust is a multi-level phenomenon that evaluates organization members in conjunction with organization systems to respond to its goals and responsibilities and adhere to accepted ethical principles in communication with its beneficiaries. Although some previous research has examined trust in the organization, especially interpersonal trust, research that specifically focuses on organizational trust, the employees’ trust toward the organization, is rarely seen, and the lack of an organizational trust model, especially in Iranian organizations, has caused numerous problems.

This is qualitative research based on the grounded theory with a systematic approach. The theoretical saturation criterion was achieved after conducting 17 semi-structured interviews with government organizations' experts. Data analysis was done based on coding processes and using MAXQDA software. To ensure the validity and increase the credibility of the research, the criteria provided by Guba and Lincoln (1994) and to evaluate its strength, the four criteria of appropriateness, relevance, applicability, and modifiability of Strauss and Corbin (1998) were used.

In addition to confirming the results of previous research, this research achieved new findings. Based on these findings, organizational trust in government organizations is created from reliability and predictability based on the causes of trust-building management, trust-building organization, and trust-building employees. Moreover, organizational trust affects the strategy implementation such as ethics-orientation, interactions, regulations, and processes. The consequences of these strategies include enhancing performance regarding the employees' psychological well-being improvement and the organization's productivity. Also, they improve the stakeholders' satisfaction, including the people's satisfaction and the organization's legitimacy. The context of the effective application of these strategies is the internal environment including the atmosphere and physical environment of the organization and the external environment, including the political and economic conditions and national culture. In the meantime, the influence of intervenors, such as organizational conformity and demographic components of the organization on the effectiveness of these strategies should not be ignored. 

 CONCLUSIONS & SUGGESTIONS

Considering that the present research dealt with the statistics of the organizational trust model in government organizations and provided outputs in the field of causes, consequences, strategies, context, and intervenors of organizational trust; It can be acknowledged that the proposed model can be used in organizations, especially public ones, as a suitable guide for promoting and developing organizational trust. Managers can thus strengthen employees’ trust in the organization.