Perceived Trustworthiness of Supervisors, Employee Satisfaction and Cooperation

This study examines the value of trustworthiness of supervisors within US federal agencies. Although public administration scholars have paid attention to trust as a managerial resource, more empirical evidence is still needed. The authors test whether perceived trustworthiness of supervisors works as a valuable managerial resource within federal agencies. Following Mayer et al. (1995), this study assumes trustworthiness as a multi-dimensional concept composed of ability, benevolence and integrity. Drawing on data from a large-scale survey of US federal employees, the research first tests whether these factors constitute the elements of supervisory trustworthiness of federal agencies by second-order confirmatory factor analysis. Then, using ordinary least squares (OLS) regression, the research examines whether trustworthiness has positive associations with employee satisfaction and cooperation within work units. The analyses confirm that the three factors constitute trustworthiness as Mayer et al. (1995) suggest and that supervisory trustworthiness is substantially associated with the two outcomes.