Trust me, I'm your boss: Trust and power in supervisor-supervisee communication

This study examined employees' perceptions of trust, power and mentoring in manager-employee relationships in a variety of sectors, including health care, education, hospitality and retail. The main theoretical frameworks used were communication accommodation theory and social identity theory, in examining the manager-employee relationships from an in-group/out-group perspective. Computer-aided content analyses revealed a number of emergent communication and relationship themes that impact upon the level of 'in-groupness' and therefore trust in supervisor-supervisee relationships. While it may be illusory to believe that any organization can enjoy complete trust among its workforce, it is clear that certain communication characteristics can result in greater trust in manager-employee relationships, even within the context of organizational constraints. It is argued that the results of the study could be used to inform human resource management academics of key aspects of managerial communication that should be further researched, and also provide insights into the main communication skills that managers should focus upon to improve trust in the workplace.

The influence of financial participation and participation in decision-making on employee job attitudes

This study investigates the direct and indirect effects of financial participation (FP) and participation in decision-making (PDM) on employee job attitudes. The central premise is that both financial participation and participation in decision-making have effects on job attitudes, such as integration, involvement and commitment, perceived pay equity, performance-reward contingencies, satisfaction and motivation. After reviewing the theoretical and empirical literature and testing two theoretical frameworks, developed by Long (1978a) and Florkowski ( 1989), a new model was constructed to consider a combined effects of both FP and PDM, herein referred to as employee participation (EP). The underpinning of the model is based on the assumption that both ( a) the combination of financial participation and participation in decision-making ('employee participation'), and (b) participation in decision-making produce favourable effects on employee job attitudes. The test of the new model showed that employee participation does not produce more favourable effects on employee job attitudes, than does participation in decision-making on its own. The data were gathered from a questionnaire study administered in a large British retail organization that operates two types of ownership schemes - profit-sharing and SAYE schemes.