企业中的上级信任:作为一种行动意愿

Subordinates’ Trust in Supervisors:As a Kind of Willingness of Action

组织信任已成为管理学领域的热点研究议题,虽然研究者开发了多种信任测量工具,但多数信任测量工具与当前主导的组织信任定义不一致,缺乏针对意愿的信任测量,更没有研究探讨不同形态信任之间的关系及相应测量工具的适用范围。本研究以上级信任为切入点,试图回答上述问题。研究1将信任视为一种行动意愿,基于信任行为理论框架和开放性问卷结果,开发了包含6个题目、"依赖"和"表露"两个维度的《企业员工对直接上级信任问卷》。研究2以553名企业员工为被试,通过潜变量路径分析考察了不同形态信任之间的关系。结果显示:信任(意愿)受认知和情绪因素的共同影响;可信度在信任基础和信任(意愿)间起部分中介作用;信任(意愿)在可信度和工作满意的关系中起完全中介作用;作为意愿的信任,相对于信任基础(认知和情感信任)和可信度,与信任结果变量(工作满意)关系最近,能更直接、有效地测量信任水平。

Trust within organizations has attracted much attention from researchers in the O/B field. Although regarding trust as willingness to act, a definition proposed by Rousseau, Burt and Sitkin （1998） and Mayer,Davis and Schoorman （1995）, has been gradually and widely accepted by researchers, most of the existing trust measures were established based on regarding trust as belief or action. What is more, these trust measures were rarely used repeatedly. The lack of a trust measure consistent with the dominant definition of trust and the little knowledge about the relationships between different aspects of tru＇st （i.e., as belief, willingness and action） have hindered the development of trust research. Given the above shortcomings in trust measurement, the present research focused on subordinates＇ trust in supervisors within enterprises and aimed at： First, establishing a validated measure of trust as willingness to act; second, comparing it with existing trust measures and clarifying the relationships between different aspects of trust, Based on the theoretical framework of trust behaviors and outcomes from open-ended questionnaire in pilot study, the Employees＇ Trust in Direct Supervisor Inventory （TDSI） was established. In order to test the reliability and validity of TDSI, 412 employees from 4 firms in Tianjin participated Study 1. After robust item analysis, 6 items belonging to 2 dimensions （i.e. reliance and disclosure） were left in TDSI and good psychometric features were demonstrated. Based on the above findings, Study 2 compared the relative validity of TDSI with past trust measures. 553 employees from 8 firms in Tianjin and Zhengzhou participated in Study 2 and completed the TDST, Managerial Interpersonal Trust, Organizational Trust Inventory, Organizational Trust Measure and Job Satisfaction Inventory. Path analysis for latent variables was uses to analyze the data. Findings of competitive models comparisons revealed that： ①Trust as willingness to act was influenced by both cognitive and affective factors; ②trustworthiness partially mediated the relationship between the basis of trust （i.e., cognitive trust and affective trust） and trust willingness; trust willingness fully mediated the relationships between trustworthiness and job satisfaction; ③Trust willingness was the most proximal predictor for trust outcomes among trust relevant constructs （i.e., trustworthiness and basis of trust）. Present research not only provided an alternative trust measure for organizational trust research, but also clarified the relationships among trust relevant constructs and corresponding measures, which might facilitate the empirical study on organizational trust.