Identifying the Indicators of Organizational Trust: The Importance of this Trust for Employee Extra-Role Behaviour

Organizations need to access the knowledge and skills of employees if they are to innovate and improve their performance. Because extra-role behaviors are discretionary, there is a need to understand why employees contribute. This research on 325 employees of 5 different Regional Councils/Local Government Authorities in New South Wales. Australia has found that perceptions about management values, psychological support and management credibility were strong indicators of organizational trust, which in turn was positively correlated with employee extra-role behavior. The above findings highlight the important factors that employees use to determine their trust and which can lead to discretionary employee effort. The research also found that participation in decision making and the opportunities for job autonomy were strong indicators of extra-role behavior, while intrinsic job motivation and the sharing of knowledge were poor indicators of discretionary extra-role behavior.