dc.description.abstract | The concept of trust is an important basis
for human relations and the trust relationship
between superior and subordinate in
organizations has been constantly a major
focus for management scholars. But, relative
to the emphasis on trust-related issues, trust
violations or trust failures has hardly been
mentioned in organizational behavior
literature. Interpersonal trust brings
behavioral predictability. Through trust
mechanisms, superior and subordinate
maintain their interaction patterns as well as
their behavioral models. On the contrary,
trust violations bring impact and change to
the existing relationships. This study is aimed 2
at exploring subordinate’s responses and
attributions both after his or her superior’s
trust violations and after superior’s
explanations.
This study has two purposes: First, the
researcher examines the factors influencing
superiors’ trust violations and justifications
and try to understand how subordinates
perceives superiors’ trust violations events
and their cause attributions. In terms of
managerial implications, the results of this
study help to suggest practical managers what
they should use for explanations and
justifications after their trust violations.
The procedures of this research project
are as follows: First, the researcher reviewed
literature and carried out interviews. Through
the interviews the researcher obtained
descriptions of the informants’ actual
experiences on superior’s trust violations and
justifications, who and what were involved in
the process, and their personal feelings about
the event. In terms of quantitative research
design, the researcher based upon literature to
derive their hypotheses and carried out
research designs. The researcher developed
various case scenarios for superiors’ trust
violations and test their validity. Other
variables were measured by questionnaires
and used to examine relationships among
them. The empirical study includes two
stages: Stage 1 includes 190 questionnaires
and Stage two includes 197 questionnaires.
The study results are as follows: The
first stage of the study shows that, the more a
respondent accepted explanations for
superior’s trust violations such as norm
establishment, equality consideration,
sacrifice and devotion, ability orientation,
etc., the more the person perceived fairness
toward trust violation event. In addition, the
more a person had traditional cultural values,
when his/her superior violated trust, the more
he/she might perceive the event being fair.
The results of the Stage two study shows that,
when providing adequate rationale to the
respondents, there would be changes for the
effects of some cultural values on degrees of
trust on superior. In terms of managerial
implications, the researcher hope to propose
concrete suggestions for practicing managers
to effectively reduce the negative effects of
superior’s trust violations. | en |