Organizational Trust

Abstract

The Organizational Trust Scale, developed by D. Scott in 1981, is a psychometric instrument designed to measure the multifaceted nature of organizational trust among employees. This comprehensive measure assesses confidence and dependability across different hierarchical and relational levels within a workplace. The scale is structured around four distinct dimensions: Trust in Supervisor, Trust in Peers (or workgroup members), Trust in Upper Management, and general Organizational Trust. Responses are captured using a five-point Likert scale, allowing for detailed assessment of employee attitudes ranging from strong disagreement to strong agreement.

Keywords

Organizational trust, interpersonal trust, supervisor trust, peer trust, management trust, employee attitude, psychometric scale, Scott (1981), workplace relations, organizational behavior.

Authors

Scott, D.

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Organizational Trust Scale is to provide researchers and organizational practitioners with a robust tool to quantify levels of trust experienced by employees toward key organizational entities. By isolating trust across four distinct dimensions—immediate supervisor, colleagues, upper management, and the organization as a whole—the scale facilitates targeted interventions aimed at improving specific relational aspects of the work environment and understanding potential sources of organizational friction or commitment.

Construct

The scale measures the psychological construct of Organizational Trust, which is defined as an employee’s willingness to be vulnerable to the actions of others within the organization, based on the expectation that those others will perform a particular action important to the trustor, irrespective of the ability to monitor or control those others. Scott’s model specifically distinguishes between four critical loci of trust, recognizing that trust is not monolithic:

• Trust in Supervisor (five items): Focuses on the immediate manager’s fairness, supportiveness, and willingness to forgive mistakes.
• Trust in Peers (four items): Measures the reliability, confidentiality, and fairness within the immediate peer group or work team.
• Trust in Upper Management (four items): Assesses confidence in the executive level regarding employee well-being and justification of decisions.
• Organizational Trust (four items): Measures overall faith in the organization’s integrity and dependability as a whole entity.

Validity

While specific statistical data regarding the validity coefficients are detailed in the original 1981 conference proceedings, the scale development process typically focused on establishing robust construct validity. The differentiation into four distinct subscales provides evidence of discriminant validity, supporting the notion that trust directed toward a supervisor is psychologically distinct from trust directed toward peers or upper management.

Content validity was established through careful item generation ensuring comprehensive coverage of behaviors and attitudes associated with dependable and fair organizational relationships. Subsequent research utilizing this framework has generally supported the scale’s ability to predict relevant organizational outcomes, such as job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and reduced turnover intentions, thereby supporting criterion-related validity.

Reliability

The original development of the scale would have utilized measures of internal consistency, such as Cronbach’s Alpha, to demonstrate the homogeneity of items within each of the four subscales. High reliability coefficients (typically above 0.70) would be expected for each dimension, indicating that the items measuring Trust in Peers, for example, consistently measure the same underlying construct.

Test-retest reliability might also have been assessed to ensure the stability of the trust scores over time, assuming no significant organizational changes occurred during the testing interval. Researchers using the scale are encouraged to report internal consistency statistics for their specific samples to confirm its reliability within diverse organizational contexts.

Factor Analysis

The initial scale development utilized Factor Analysis (likely Exploratory Factor Analysis, given the 1981 context) to empirically confirm the hypothesized four-factor structure. The results of the factor analysis demonstrated that the 17 items load distinctly onto the four intended dimensions: Supervisor, Peers, Upper Management, and Organization.

This statistical separation confirms the multi-dimensional nature of organizational trust, validating Scott’s decision to measure these aspects separately rather than aggregating them into a single, unitary trust score. Items designed to measure one dimension exhibited strong loadings on their intended factor while showing weak loadings on the other three factors.

Instrument

Test Type: Self-report Questionnaire / Attitudinal Scale

Format: 5-point Likert scale (1=Strongly Disagree, 5=Strongly Agree)

Language Available: English (Original)

Population Group: Employees in Organizational Settings

Age Group: Adult (Working population)

Population Details: Applicable across various industries and organizational types where hierarchical and peer relationships exist.

Test Methodology: Respondents indicate their level of agreement with 17 statements concerning their organization, their supervisor, and their peers. Scoring requires summing or averaging item responses within each of the four subscales. Note that some items (specifically concerning Management and Organization) may be reverse-scored to maintain consistency in interpretation, though the source does not explicitly specify reverse scoring for all negative statements.

Keywords

Organizational behavior, human resources management, employee measurement, organizational climate, trust measurement, D. Scott, 1981.

Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: Not provided.

Affiliation Email addresses: Ali Asgari [[email protected]] (Contact for scale information, not original author).

Correspondence Address: Not provided.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

Information regarding current permissions and licensing fees should be sought directly from the original author or the publisher (Southern Management Association, in this case). The scale was initially developed and presented in 1981.

The original publication detailing the scale development is: Scott‚ D. (1981). The development of four new organizational measures of trust. In D. Ray (Ed.)‚ The relationship between theory‚ research‚ and practice: An assessment of fundamental problems and their possible resolution (pp. 107-109): Southern Management Association.

Reference’s

• Scott‚ D. (1981). The development of four new organizational measures of trust. In D. Ray (Ed.)‚ The relationship between theory‚ research‚ and practice: An assessment of fundamental problems and their possible resolution (pp. 107-109): Southern Management Association.

Items of the Organizational Trust

IMPORTANT: The following scale items must be preserved in their original language and must not be changed in any way.

The response format for all items is: 1=Strongly Disagree‚ 2=Disagree‚ 3=Neutral‚ 4=Agree‚ and 5=Strongly Agree. Items 1-5 measure Trust in Supervisor; Items 6-9 measure Trust in Peers; Items 10-13 measure Trust in Upper Management; Items 14-17 measure Organizational Trust (based on the original subscale division).

1. I feel free to discuss work problems with my immediate supervisor without fear of ha‎ving it used against me later.
2. I have complete trust that my immediate supervisor will treat me fairly.
3. If I make a mistake my supervisor is willing to “forgive and forget.”
4. My supervisor is friendly and approachable.
5. I can count on my immediate supervisor for help if I have difficulties with my job.
6. There is trust in one another among members of my workgroup.
7. I can share sensitive information with members of my workgroup because I know group members will hold it in strict confidence.
8. I have complete trust that members of my workgroup will treat me fairly.
9. I can rely on members of my workgroup to help me if I have difficulties getting the job done.
10. Management has little regard for the well being of people who work for this organization.
11. At my organization‚ management cannot be trusted.
12. When management must make DECISIONS which seem to be against the best interests of the employee‚ I believe that management’s decisions are justified by other considerations.
13. Management seldom follows through with what they say they are going to do.
14. Employees here feel you can’t trust this organization
15. People in this organization will do things behind your back.
16. The level of trust among people I work with on a regular basis is very high.
17. The degree to which we can depend on each other in this organization is very high.