Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Governments are often viewed as not being effective and efficient at accomplishing their activities. Under budgetary constraints, possibilities of improving government effectiveness using monetary approaches are limited. Therefore, public managers find themselves involved in a search of non-monetary incentives for government employees to increase their effectiveness in their workplaces. One of ways of achieving greater effectiveness without investing financial resources is to increase the level of organizational commitment of government employees. It is considered that employees with a strong sense of organizational commitment may behave proactively and expand their efforts beyond their job descriptions (Balfour and Wechsler 1996; Carnevale and Wechsler 1992). Meanwhile, according to the Best Places to Work in the Federal Government rankings, in 2014 the level of commitment of the U.S. federal employees continued to decline and reached its lowest point since 2003. Despite such negative trends, organizational commitment of federal government employees has not been a subject of active investigations. Meanwhile, investigation of factors having impact on the organizational commitment of federal employees may help develop strategies to enhance their commitment. This study aimed at exploring the relationship between trust in supervisor and organizational commitment of the U.S. federal employees and mediators of such relationship. The research hypothesis was based on the assumption that when government employees trust their supervisors they are more likely to believe in and accept their organization’s goals and values, and perceive their roles as important for the success of organization. Studies that were conducted mostly for local government employees demonstrated no consistency on their findings. For example, Nyhan (1999) revealed supervisory trust to be a key correlate for affective organizational commitment at the level of local governments; Perry (2004) found no relationship between trust in supervisor and organizational commitment for a municipal department. This research was based on the 2014 Federal Employees Viewpoint Survey data and employed hierarchical regression analysis to test the research hypotheses. The analysis revealed significant positive influence of trust in supervisor on the level of organizational commitment of federal employees. Another important finding is that the relationship between trust in supervisor and organizational commitment of federal employees is mediated by their pshychological empowerment and job satisfaction. Influences of demographic variables such as status, sex and education level of government employees on their organizational commitment are rather negligible. The theoretical and practical implications of the study are discussed.

References

Balfour, Danny L., and Barton Wechsler. 1996. “Organizational Commitment: Antecedents and Outcomes in Public Organizations.” Public Productivity & Management Review19 (3): 256–77.

Carnevale, David G, and Barton Wechsler. 1992. “Trust in the Public Sector: Individual and Organizational Determinants.” Administration & Society.23 (4).

Nyhan, Ronald C. 1999. “Increasing Affective Organizational Commitment in Public Organizations The Key Role of Interpersonal Trust.” Review of Public Personnel Administration19 (3): 58–70.

Perry, Ronald W. 2004. “The Relationship of Affective Organizational Commitment with Supervisory Trust.” Review of Public Personnel Administration 24 (2): 133–49.