Title: Does employee satisfaction with communication affect trust? Longitudinal evidence from an Australian study

Authors: Rachid Zeffane

Addresses: Department of Management, Marketing and Public Administration, College of Business Administration, University of Sharjah, P.O. Box 27272 Sharjah, United Arab Emirates

Abstract: This paper examines the relative impact of employee satisfaction with communication on trust in a work-setting. The data was drawn from an employee survey conducted in two consecutive years in a medium-size food processing organisation operating in Australia. Regression analysis revealed that employee satisfaction with how managers and supervisors communicated with them significantly affected their feeling of trust. The results were highly consistent across the two survey years. More specifically, aspects of communication that most significantly affected trust was the extent to which supervisors, mid-level managers and senior managers were perceived to communicate well with employees. Comparatively, the relative impacts of teamwork, participation and overall job satisfaction on trust were not as significant.

Keywords: communication; trust in managers; employee satisfaction; job satisfaction; participation; teamwork; food processing; Australia; employee participation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBPM.2012.044865

International Journal of Business Performance Management, 2012 Vol.13 No.1, pp.60 - 74

Received: 16 Mar 2011
Accepted: 07 May 2011

Published online: 20 Aug 2014 *

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