Date of Conferral

2021

Degree

Ph.D.

School

Management

Advisor

William Shriner

Abstract

Generally, research results have suggested that employees’ lack of trust in leadership typically results in poor performance. The purpose of this research was to explore the factors that contributed to the federal government’s organizational success despite organization employees’ low interpersonal trust/distrust in the agency’s leadership. This change in the theory of trust was identified as a gap in literature; the change in the traditional knowledge of trust merits this specific problem to be explored and analyzed for further understanding. The conceptual framework was composed of trust, distrust, and employee-leader interpersonal trust/distrust theory. A qualitative exploratory case study was used along with the critical incident technique to collect, analyze and report data results for 77 critical incidents. Semistructured, in-depth interviews with open-ended questions were used to explore 20 federal employees’ experiences and understand this phenomenon. The data collected in this research extended the existing body of knowledge of trust, distrust and offered insight into factors that influence federal employees to perform positively despite experiencing low trust or distrust in leadership. The study results indicated that 90% of participants identified mission as a factor that influenced their positive performance, while 85% of participants identified personality as a second factor that influenced them to perform positively despite experiencing low interpersonal trust in leadership. The results of this research extend knowledge to the management field professionals. The results may affect change in leadership’s awareness and behavior within the federal government, leading to a social change.

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