The Impact of Trust and Job Involvement on Organisational Commitment

Sascha Klein, Karl-Armin Brohm

Abstract: All companies rely on committed and loyal employees to reach their goals.

Thus far, we know little about the specific effects of the mechanisms of leadership influence on the organisational commitment of employees. This paper focuses on the specific effect of the use of the “trust” mechanism of leadership influence on organisational commitment in environments with both low and high job involvement.

The paper focuses on two interrelated research questions. First, how high is the impact of the variables of trust and job involvement on the expression of the dependent variable of organisational commitment? Second, how do the variables of trust and job involvement interact to influence the expression of organisational commitment?

Using a comprehensive dataset of 218 survey participants, we found significant positive effects of the use of “trust” on organisational commitment, and we found a moderating effect of “job involvement” in the effect of trust on organisational commitment at certain values.

This paper extends the post-heroic theory of lateral leadership to its practical usability and shows the specific effect of the use of the “trust” mechanism of leadership influence in environments with “job involvement”.

Key words: leadership; leadership influence mechanism; trust; job involvement; organisational commitment; job engagement

JEL codes: J28, M54