The mediating effect of organisational justice mechanisms on the relationship between leadership and trust

The focus of this research was to build on existing literature of leadership, organisational justice mechanisms and trust. This was done through specific focus on how different kinds of leadership styles, transformational leadership and transactional leadership, effects different types of trust, being affect-based trust and cognition-based trust, as mediated by organisational justice mechanisms, being distributive justice, procedural justice and interactional justice.<br>To investigate these complex relationships, and given the number of latent constructs proposed, the statistical technique used in this research was partial leased squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM). This enabled the researcher to evaluate the strength and significance of relationships in this complex model.<br>Findings showed that distributive justice and procedural justice had no significant mediating effect between leadership style, being transformational leadership and transactional leadership, and the components of trust, being affect-based trust and cognition-based trust. However, it was found that interactional justice had a significant positive mediating effect between transactional leadership and the components of trust, being affect-based trust and cognition-based trust, but not for transformational leadership.<br>Given the context of the study, these findings further support the notion that it is the responsibility of leaders in an organisation to communicate effectively, clearly and transparently to their followers at all times and, in doing so, increase the level of perceived fairness which will then result in trust being built within the organisation. This in turn will allow employees to put themselves in positions of vulnerability, with the expectation that positive outcomes will be achieved.<br>

本研究旨在延续领导力、组织公平机制（Organizational Justice Mechanisms）与信任领域的既有研究脉络，聚焦变革型领导（Transformational Leadership）与交易型领导（Transactional Leadership）两类不同领导风格，探究其如何通过分配公平（Distributive Justice）、程序公平（Procedural Justice）与互动公平（Interactional Justice）构成的组织公平中介路径，对基于情感的信任（Affect-based Trust）与基于认知的信任（Cognition-based Trust）两类信任维度产生影响。<br>针对上述复杂的变量关系，且考虑到本研究提出的潜在构念数量，本研究采用偏最小二乘结构方程模型（Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling，PLS-SEM）作为统计分析方法，该方法可有效评估该复杂模型中各变量间关联的强度与显著性水平。<br>研究结果表明，分配公平与程序公平在领导风格（即变革型领导与交易型领导）与信任维度（基于情感的信任与基于认知的信任）之间未表现出显著的中介效应；而互动公平则在交易型领导与上述两类信任维度之间存在显著的正向中介效应，但该效应并未在变革型领导与信任维度的关系中体现。<br>结合本研究的情境设定，上述发现进一步印证了如下观点：组织中的领导者需始终与下属开展有效、清晰且透明的沟通，以此提升下属感知到的组织公平水平，进而在组织内部建立信任；而信任的建立将促使员工愿意置身于易受风险影响的处境，并期待最终获得积极的工作成果。