Trust , Cynicism , and Organizational Change : The Role of Management By

This paper elaborates upon the factors that create trust and cynicism in an organizational change. We predict that distributive justice, procedural justice, and interactional justice are three antecedents of organizational trust and cynicism about organizational change. In addition, it was expected that the moderator supervisory communication has a positive effect on the level of trust in the organization and that the moderator supervisory communication leads to a lower level of cynicism in an organizational change. Moreover, the concept of organization-based self-esteem was taken into account, expecting that this construct mediates the relationship between distributive, procedural, and interactional justice and organizational trust, and the relationship between distributive, procedural, and interactional justice and cynicisms about organizational change. Data were gathered through Verander Visie bv. A longitudinal analysis, comprising two time moments, investigated the relationships between the constructs. Results show that the concepts of procedural justice and interactional justice measure the same underlying construct. Procedural justice was excluded from the analyses. The results of this research show that distributive justice and interactional justice are two antecedents of organizational trust and cynicism about organizational change. Supervisory communication moderates the relationships between distributive justice and organizational trust, and the relationship between interactional justice and organizational trust. Moreover, empirical evidence was found to conclude that supervisory communication moderates the relationship between distributive justice and cynicism about organizational change. In addition, organization-based self-esteem completely mediates the relationship between distributive and interactional justice and cynicism about organizational change. Empirical evidence was also found to conclude that organization-based self-esteem completely mediates the relationship between distributive justice and organizational trust. The reverse ordering of the initial studied relationships was also investigated. Empirical evidence was found to conclude that organization-based self-esteem completely mediates the relationship between organizational trust and distributive justice, the relationship between cynicism about organizational change and distributive justice, and the relationship between cynicism about organizational change and interactional justice. Moreover, we found that organization-based self-esteem partially mediates the relationship between organizational trust and interactional justice. The construct of supervisory communication was developed for this research. Its moderating effect on the relationship between distributive and interactional justice and organizational trust and cynicism about organizational change has not been researched so far. Moreover, within this study, the mediating effect of organization-based self-esteem on the relationship between distributive and interactional justice and organizational trust and cynicism about organizational change was studied for the first time. Furthermore, the reverse ordering of these …