REVIEW OF PUBLIC PERSONNEL ADMINISTRATION / June 2004 Perry / ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT

The Relationship of Affective Organizational Commitment with Supervisory Trust

RONALD W. PERRY Arizona State University Research and anecdotal evidence suggest employee levels of organizational commitment have declined in public and private sectors. The important role of commitment in government recruitment and retention reinforces the need to maintain employee commitment. The literature is conflicted regarding the extent to which trust in supervisors can facilitate commitment. One public and one private organization were studied. Although trust and commitment were not closely related in a direct statistical sense, trust in supervisors has an important role to play in promoting organizational commitment. Employee attitudes toward layoffs and reorganizations were highly predictive of organizational commitment. Credibility, decision participation, empowerment, and feedback were significant predictors of supervisor trust. A trusted supervisor can provide meaningful interpretations of organizational intent and reassurance that the desirable value structure of the organization will be sustained. Keywords: organizational commitment; supervisor trust; organizational trust; supervisor credibility; organizational turbulence

n the past decadeparticularly since the collapse of Enron and Worldcom and the fiscal crises in state and local governmentsemployees have begun to change their view of the organizations in which they work. Managers and researchers report that the bonds between employees and organizations are growing weaker (Kanter & Mirvis, 1989; Robinson, 1996). At the same time, affective organizational commitment in the public sector has long been seen as a key element in maintaining organizational resilience and output in the public and private sectors (Eaton, 2003; Romzek, 1985). The threat of waning levels of organizational commitment is particularly important for the public sector. Here the public service values embraced by government organizations attract potential employees and sustain their

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employment, sometimes in the face of lower resource and reward levels than those available in the private sector (Balfour & Weschler, 1990; Mayer, Davis, & Schoorman, 1995; Perry & Wise, 1990). Indeed, Nyhan (2000) argued that one of the most important challenges for public sector managers and supervisors is to determine what measures may be undertaken to maintain employee affective commitment to the organization. Although there is much empirical support for the need to enhance organizational commitment (Mueller, Wallace, & Price, 1992), there is much less clear guidance on how commitment can be increased. Nyhan (1999, 2000) and Blake and Mouton (1984) concluded that the principal avenue to increased organizational commitment lies in enhancing levels of trust in supervisors. In contrast, other researchers have reported that organizational commitment and supervisor trust are not closely related to one another, removing the possibility of altering organizational commitment by changing supervisor behavior (Allen, Shore, & Griffeth, 2003; Carson, Carson, Roe, Birkenmeier, & Phillips, 1999; Luhmann, 1979). Researchers holding this view believe that factors such as employee empowerment, participation in decision making, and feedback from supervisors are important tools in increasing organizational commitment (Bashaw & Grant, 1994; Carson et al., 1999; Lee & Olshfski, 2002). The public manager who desires to increase levels of employee commitment to the organization is consequently faced with a dilemma: What measures can be used to enhance organizational commitment? To begin to answer this question, in the context of conflicting advice from scholars and researchers, one must sort out the relationship between supervisory trust and organizational commitment. More specifically, it is necessary to understand not just whether trust causes commitment but also to identify other variables that affect trust on one hand, and commitment on the other. This task is conceptual and empirical. Conceptually, we must be clear about the meaning of commitment and trust. Failing such clarity, the ambiguity that is introduced into research interpretations will not point the way to effective practical measures that could be used by managerial change agents. Achieving such clarity permits a useful assessment of whether supervisory trust shapes organizational commitment. Following this, one can further assess managerial tools (variables) that influence trust and commitment. The purpose of this article is to examine the relationship of employee trust in direct supervisors with affective commitment to the organization. The relationships of trust and commitment with other key characteristics of the organization (layoffs, managerial reorganization) and characteristics of management (empowerment, participation, feedback) are also exam-

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ined. These variables are important because they are subject to managerial manipulation and therefore can be used as tools in the context of organizational change. An empirical assessment of relationships is made based on data from two organizations: a municipal fire department and a manufacturing firm. As a condition of collecting data, the management of each organization was promised that individual and organizational identity would be protected.
AFFECTIVE COMMITMENT AND SUPERVISORY TRUST

For organizational commitment and supervisory trust, an important conceptual challenge lies in specifying the meaning of commitment and trust. For example, some studies use the direct supervisor as the object of trust assessment, while others use the organizations top executive as the referent, and still others use the more global notion of trust in the organization, which conceptually probably overlaps affective commitment (Gilbert & Tang, 1998). Apparent differences in relationship (correlation) between different indicators of the same concept often arise from using different referents or objects for the measurement (Perry & Mankin, 2003). Here, the referent for affective organizational commitment is the organization (workplace), whereas the object for trust is the first-level supervisor. Organizational commitmentsimilar to trusthas been conceptualized in different ways, particularly with respect to the referent. Sometimes commitment is measured relative to the career, the job, personal relationships with coworkers, the workstation, or the employing organization (Mueller et al., 1992). Thus, the literature distinguishes among affective commitment (attraction to goals and values), continuance commitment (fear of leaving the job itself ) and normative commitment (peer pressure to stay). All forms of commitment should be distinguished from organizational trust, in that trust implies a level of acknowledged control, whereas commitment focuses on attachment (for different reasons). The classic definition of affective organizational commitment emphasizes the employee bond with the organization, captured by such things as acceptance of organizational goals and values and a strong desire to associate with the organization (Porter, Steers, Mowday, & Boulin, 1974). Similarly, Greenberg (1999) saw affective commitment as the strength of peoples desires to continue working for an organization because they agree with its underlying goals and values (p. 87). Robbins (1997) saw affective commitment as the

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employees degree of investment in a well-defined organizational culture; the individual enhances self-image by committing to established and visible values of the organization. In measuring affective commitment here, a single Likert-type scale item was used: I stay with this organization because I respect the goals and values it represents. A standard Likert-type 5-item response format was used for recording agreement and coded such that high numeric values meant high levels of commitment. This item captures the choice to stay with the organization and attachment to goals and values that consistently appear in definitions of affective commitment (Meyer & Allen, 1991). Gilbert and Tang (1998) contended that trust should be seen as a feeling of confidence and support for a supervisor. Robinson (1996) also saw trust as embodied in ones expectations, assumptions or beliefs about the likelihood that anothers future actions will be beneficial, favorable, or at least not detrimental to ones interests (p. 576). Robinsons (1996) definition is used here, and a modified version of his trust scale, also used by Courtney (1998), was adopted. Thus, trust was measured as a 7-item Likert-type scale, addressing supervisor integrity, motives, intentions, and fairness, using a standard 5-point response format. This scale was pretested for reliability on an availability sample of 22 public sector employees. The testretest reliability coefficient was .88; this exceeds the level of .80 set for reliable scales by Edwards (1957).
ANTECEDENTS OF COMMITMENT AND TRUST

The empirical literature contains a variety of conflicting claims about the relationship of commitment and trust, in addition to ambiguous claims about what variables affect each concept. Some of the variation in research conclusions can be attributed to differences in the object or referent for trust and commitment. Nyhan (1999) reported that there was a positive relationship between trust in the supervisor and affective organizational commitment across three public sector organizations, implying that increases in trust produce increases in commitment. Yet even with Nyhans (1999) clearer definition of variables, the argument that affective commitment should be positively related to supervisor trust is not unequivocal. Certainly it is not difficult to see that high commitment to the organization might produce a halo effect for trust in ones supervisor. Conversely, high

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supervisor trust might be associated with higher levels of affective commitment, to the extent that the supervisor was identified with the organization. It also seems possible, however, to have high levels of trust in the supervisor while not being committed to the organization (good supervisor, poor organization) and to not trust the supervisor while being committed to the organization (poor supervisor, good organization). The first two conditions described would produce a positive statistical relationship between affective commitment and supervisor trust, while under the last two there would be a much lower relationship. It seems reasonable that each of these four outcomes (as well as others) could be observed in public or private organizations. On a theoretical level, the relationship between affective commitment and supervisor trust is not generic but depends on the valence of the employee assessment of each variable. Consequently, the observed (statistical) relationship between affective commitment and supervisor trust depends on the valence (high or low) of each variable and could be positive, negative, or not present. A strategy for more carefully examining the connection between supervisor trust and affective commitment would involve using each variable as a predictor of the other in a regression analysis with other antecedents. A variety of factors have been isolated as antecedents toand potentially managerial tools to change affective commitment and managerial trust (Gilbert & Tang, 1998; Zand, 1997). More interesting, the literature often suggests that the same variables are antecedent to commitment and trust. These variables include employee empowerment (Bowen & Lawler, 1992; Nyhan, 1999), employee participation in decision making (Savery & Waters, 1989), supervisor feedback (Nyhan, 1999), and years on the job (Cangemi, Rice, & Kowalski, 1989). Employee layoffs (Brockner, 1988, 1992), and reorganizations (Wright & Bonett, 1993) have been largely conceptualized as structural variables related to affective commitment to the organization. Two critical variables believed related only to supervisor trust are tenure (years worked) under a supervisor (Mishra & Morrissey, 1990) and employee perception of supervisor credibility (Kouzes & Posner, 1993). The purpose here is not to assemble a formal theoretical model of antecedents for either affective commitment or supervisor trust. Rather, the goal is to clarify the relationship between commitment and trust in a multiple variable context that permits an assessment of the relative importance of each focal variable as antecedent to the other. Thus, data will be fitted to two conceptual models. The first is designed to explain affective commit-

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ment to an organization, using supervisor trust, empowerment, participation, feedback, perception of layoffs, perception of reorganizations, and years employed. The second model predicts supervisor trust using affective commitment, empowerment, participation, feedback, credibility of supervisor, and years under the supervisor. Measurements adopted for the predictor variables in each model follow the practices in the literature. Employee empowerment is defined in terms of the employees ability to assess situations and take actions in the absence of direct managerial supervision (Bowen & Lawler, 1992). A single Likerttype item was used to operationally define empowerment: In my job, I have the freedom to make personal assessments of issues and make decisions about action without direct supervisory input. The traditional 5-point Likert-type response format was coded so that higher numerical values for agreement indicate higher levels of empowerment. Employee participation in managerial decision making focuses on the extent of consultative participation characterizing work related matters (Sashkin, 1984). This variable was operationally defined as agreement with the statement My supervisor routinely considers my opinions when making decisions that affect my workplace. Using the Likert-type response format, coding placed high numeric values on high levels of participation. Employee feedback, in the context of affective commitment and supervisor trust, is usually conceptualized in terms of the existence of two-way communications between employees and management (Nyhan, 1999). The key measurement issue is open, bidirectional information exchange. Feedback was measured in terms of agreement with the statement: I routinely provide comment regarding work issues and receive feedback from my supervisor on my input. The Likert-type response format was coded such that high numeric values are associated with high levels of feedback. Social psychological studies have shown that trust and commitment form over time, while the person making the attribution observes and interacts with the referent object to achieve a degree of predictability of behavior (McKee & Ford, 1987). It is believed that through a process of observation, the employee achieves a degree of baseline information on a variety of behavioral dimensionsincluding intentions, motives, fairness, and integrity, all of which form a basis for attributions. Thus, two different measures of time are used for predicting affective commitment and supervisor trust. Because affective commitment has as a referent the organization, the variable used in the prediction model is number of years employed with the organization. Similarly, the referent for supervisor trust is the supervisor, so time is calculated as years reporting to this supervisor.

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Research has shown that an employees perception of company layoffs and frequency of reorganization are related to commitment and trust. James and Tang (1996) convincingly argued that downsizing an organization raises questions in employee minds regarding the justice and administrative skill with which the layoffs are implemented. They further pointed out that such concerns can lead to erosion of trust for supervisors and commitment to the organization. Thus, the belief that layoffs take place too frequently indicates a perceived personal vulnerability inherent in the organization. The measurement of perception of layoffs used a single Likert-type item: Layoffs are too frequent in this organization. The traditional response format was coded such that higher numeric values are associated with the belief that layoffs are too frequent. Management reorganizationswhether in the context of downsizing or nottend to create an atmosphere in which it is more difficult for employees to maintain trust and credibility attributions (Bateman & Strasser, 1984; Podsakoff, MacKenzie, & Bommer, 1996). In organizations where functional workplace arrangements are frequently changed, employees may be faced with limited chances to observe managers and make judgments about trust. Similarly, employees may receive different messages about the values and mission of the organization, leaving confusion about the appropriateness of affective commitment. Consequently, unlike the perception of layoffs, the perception that reorganization takes place too often represents not a personal vulnerability but a structural vulnerability. The seriousness of reorganization practice as it relates to trust and commitment is most appropriately measured as an employees subjective perception. Employee perception of reorganizations was measured with a single Likert-type item: This organization undergoes functional and management reorganization too often. Answers were recorded on a standard Likert-type response format with higher numbers assigned to higher levels of perception of too much reorganization. Finally, researchers have reported that supervisor credibility is embodied by truthfulness (Dasgupta, 1988), certainty of promises (Hart, Caps, Cangemi, & Caillouet, 1986), reliability (Johnson-George & Swap, 1982), and openness in approach (Gabarro, 1978). Credibility was measured here as a 7-item Likert-type scale, following a modification of items used by Kouzes and Posner (1993) and Courtney (1998). The items included statements about forthrightness, promise keeping, honesty, and information sharing. The test-retest reliability coefficient for this scale was .87, above the minimum value for reliable scales.

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STUDY DESIGN

Data were collected from samples of employees at two organizations. One organization is a municipal fire department in a large southwestern city with a population of more than 1 million citizens. This is a fully professional department (no volunteer firefighters), more than 100 years old, with more than 1,000 sworn personnel. The department has remarkably stable management, with the current fire chief in place for more than 20 years. The department is widely recognized for its professional expertise and participation in national initiatives and training. It is nationally known for strong labor-management relationships, and its relationship with the local union is seen as a model for other union organizations. A probability sample of 100 firefighters was drawn from the department roster of personnel. Firefighter is the first rank among fire personnel in this department. Firefighters are supervised by company officers. Each of the selected firefighters was mailed a short questionnaire with the scale items and questions described above included. After three follow-up contacts, 88 firefighters (88%) completed and returned the questionnaire. The fire department sample included 70 Whites (79.5%), 3 African Americans (3.4%), and 15 Hispanics (17.0%). Seventy-one men (80.7%) and 17 women (19.3%) appeared in the sample. The second organization selected for study was a private sector manufacturing firm located in the same city. This firm is a subsidiary of a larger national firm that produces electronic parts and equipment. The local firm employs approximately 950 people. Similar to all business concerns in the recent past, this company has experienced an economic downturn. Consequently, significant downsizing and several reorganizations have taken place in the past 24 months. Several layoffs have been undertaken reducing the total workforce by approximately one fourth. A probability sample of 100 productionnonsupervisoryemployees was drawn and mailed the same questionnaire used for the fire services organization. After three follow-ups, 71 employees (71%) completed and returned the questionnaire. In the manufacturing sample, 47 employees were White (66.2%), 3 were African American, (4.2%) and 21 were Hispanic (29.6%). Of the employees, 63 were men (88.7%), while 8 (11.3%) were women. The return rates in each organization are well above the minimum of 60% recommended for the meaningful analysis of sample survey data (Babbie, 1990).

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Table 1: Descriptive Statistics and Regression Summary for Affective Commitment

Fire Departmenta Predictors M SD
c

Manufacturing Firmb M SD
c

Supervisor trust Empowerment Participation Feedback Years on the job Perception of layoffs Perception of reorganization

4.4 3.8 4.0 3.9 8.8 d 1.1

.39 .50 .98 .99 5.26 d .38

.02 .14 .14 .04 .06 d .76e

2.6 2.2 2.3 1.1 7.2 3.4 3.3

.64 .86 .74 .97 2.8 1.2 .89

.03 .26 .07 .06 .10 .29e .28e

Note: a. Adjusted R2 = .56, F6,81 = 19.5, p < .05. b. Adjusted R2 = .18, F7,63 = 3.2, p <.05. c. Standardized partial regression coefficient. d. No layoffs at fire department. e. Statistically significant, p < .05.

PREDICTING AFFECTIVE ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT

Each of the two conceptual models described above were fitted using multiple regression analysis. Table 1 shows the means, standard deviations, and regression coefficients of predictor variables for affective organizational commitment. From the descriptions of the two organizations, one would expect that their employees would differ greatly on any variables related to commitment and trust. Fire department members showed a mean score of 4.3 (SD = .77) on the 5-point affective organizational commitment item. As a group, this places them near the highest rating (5.0) on affective commitment. Indeed, the lowest commitment rating was 3.7, while the highest was 4.9. Manufacturing employees showed much lower affective commitment, with a mean of 1.6 (SD = .61), close to the lowest possible rating (1.0). These employee ratings ranged from a low rating of 1.5 to a high of only 3.84. Seven predictor variables were used in the model. The fire department mean for supervisor trust was near the top of the 5-point scale at 4.4 (SD = .39). This score contrasts with the manufacturing firm, whose employees rated mean supervisor trust at 2.6 (SD = .64), near the middle of the trust scale. The same pattern prevails for empowerment, participation, and feed-

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back, placing mean levels in the fire department nearly twice as high as those in the manufacturing firm. Firefighters showed an average of 8.8 years on the job (SD = 5.26) compared with 7.2 (SD = 2.8) for manufacturing employees. There have been no layoffs at the fire department, so that variable is unused. Among manufacturing employees, the mean rating for perception of layoffs was 3.4 (SD = 1.2), placing it above neutral but below agree on the scale. This suggests the manufacturing employees tended toward agreement that layoffs were too frequent in their organization. In practice, reorganizations are infrequent in the fire department, and the statement that reorganizations take place too often generated little agreement among the employees (M = 1.1, SD = .38). On the other hand, manufacturing employees present a mean score of 3.3 (SD = .89), indicating that they tended to agree that reorganizations took place too often. More interesting, the variable descriptive statistics reflect the almost opposite cultures of the two organizations. The fire department is characterized by high levels of affective commitment and trust; its emphasis on total quality management yields high perceptions of empowerment, participation, and feedback; employees stay on the job longer and are infrequently disrupted by layoffs and reorganizations. The beta valuesstandardized partial regression coefficientsin Table 1 show the average change in affective commitment caused by a unit change in the focal predictor while all other predictors are held constant. These coefficients vary between a value of 0 (indicating no impact on the dependent variable) and 1.0, with a sign showing the direction of the relationship. Beta values serve as a rank order for the relative importance of predictors in a single regression equation. The predictor variables were tested for multicollinearity (high intercorrelation), and observed levels were found to be lower than the standard values indicating that intercorrelation levels were problematic (Lewis-Beck, 1980). The beta for supervisor trust is low (approaching 0) and not statistically significant for employees of either organization. The beta coefficient for fire department employees was .02, and .03 for manufacturing employees. This indicates that supervisor trust does not cause a statistically reliable change in affective commitment. Furthermore, empowerment, participation, and feedback also failed to generate statistically significant betas in either organization. Similarly, years on the job also failed to have a statistically significant impact on affective commitment. The two structural variableslayoffs and reorganizationsdid produce statistically significant effects on affective commitment. In the manufacturing firm, perception of

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Table 2: Descriptive Statistics and Regression Summary for Supervisor Trust

Fire Departmenta Predictors M SD
c

Manufacturing Firmb M SD
c

Affective commitment Empowerment Participation Feedback Years under supervisor Credibility of supervisor

4.3 3.8 4.0 3.9 3.7 4.2

.77 .50 .98 .99 1.8 .38

.01 .09 .11d .15d .31d .44d

1.6 2.2 2.3 1.1 3.1 2.6

.61 .86 .74 .97 1.1 .60

.11 .28d .17d .07 .48d .22d

Note: a. Adjusted R2 = .85, F6,81 = 83.2, p < .05. b. Adjusted R 2 = .67, F6,64 = 25.4, p < .05. c. Standardized partial regression coefficient. d. Statistically significant, p < .05.

layoffs as happening too frequently shows a beta of .29, indicating an inverse relationship with affective commitment. The beta for reorganizations was .28, also indicating that the perception of frequent reorganization was negatively related to affective commitment. Similarly the fire department shows a beta of .76 for reorganization. The adjusted multiple correlation coefficients squared are low (.56 in the fire department and .18 for the manufacturing firm) but statistically significant. Virtually all the variance explained in affective commitment is accounted for by perceptions of layoffs and reorganizations in each organization.
PREDICTING SUPERVISOR TRUST

The second model sought to predict supervisor trust using affective commitment, and five other variables that the literature show to be correlated with trust. The descriptive statistics for this model match the first model, with the exception of years under the supervisor and credibility of the supervisor, which are new predictors. Table 2 shows that fire department employees spent an average of 3.7 years (SD = 1.8 years) working under their current supervisor, while those at the manufacturing firm averaged 3.1 years (SD = 1.1 years). The mean score on the credibility scale for firefighters was 4.2 (SD = 3.8), near the highest possible rating (5.0). Manufacturing employees rated their supervisors on average much lower at 2.6 (SD = .60) on the scale. Pre-

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dictors in this model were checked for multicollinearity, and levels of intercorrelation were not found to be problematic. The beta for affective commitment is low and not statistically significant in either organization. This suggests that when other variables in the model are controlled, affective commitment does not have a large enough impact on supervisory trust to be statistically reliable. Consistent with the trust literature, three variables produced statistically significant betas in both organizations. Supervisor credibility, years worked under the supervisor, and employee participation in decision making each show strong, positive relationships with supervisor trust. Employee feedback, representing two-way communication with supervisors, was statistically significant among firefighters but not in the manufacturing organization. Empowerment shows a statistically significant beta among manufacturing employees but not among firefighters. The predictors explained 85% of the variance in supervisor trust in the fire department (p < .05). In the manufacturing firm, the predictors explained 67% of the variance (p < .05).
DISCUSSION

A critically important finding is that supervisory trust is weakly related to organizational commitment. The Pearsons productmoment correlation coefficient (r2) between these variables for fire employees was .08, and .02 for manufacturing employees. When affective commitment was used in a multivariate model to predict supervisor trust, the beta coefficient was not statistically significant for either organization. Similarly, when supervisor trust was used in a multivariate model to predict affective commitment, the results were again not statistically significant. This means that increasing employee trust in supervisors alone may have only a direct small impact on organizational commitment; contrary to Nyhans (1999) contention, it is not a central path for increasing commitment. Although it is possible to think of anecdotal exceptions where trust and commitment may be related, for the most part these two variables have different referents. The data presented here are consistent with the literature, which show that one increases levels of supervisor trust by increasing credibility, decision participation, empowerment, and feedback. Time served under a supervisor (which may reflect organizational stability) also enhances trust in the supervisor. It is critical to emphasize, however, that the results presented here do not mean that supervisor trust is unimportant in building organizational commitment. Instead, statistically the relationship is not direct, however

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there are circumstances in which supervisor trust may affect other variables that are more closely related to organizational commitment. To pursue this line of thought, one can examine the antecedents of organizational commitment. The model assembled for predicting affective commitment indicated that variables with an individual as referentsupervisor trust, empowerment, participation, and feedbackwere not statistically significant predictors of commitment in either organization. This is contrary to the argument that employees perceive that the empowerment, participation, and feedback they experience flows from the organization. These data suggest it is more likely that employees attributed such flexibility and quality management practices to supervisor discretionary power. Also in contrast to some studies, time spent on the job was not statistically significantly related to affective commitment in either organization. Job tenure was relatively short among the employees studied here, however, and a cautious interpretation would await data that included longer tenured employees. Employee perceptions of layoffs and reorganizations showed statistically significant relationships with affective commitment in both organizations. Employees associated layoffs and reorganizations with an organizational referent or possibly the chief executive and top management (those who set and maintain organization norms and values). Each of these variables may be seen as representing the stability of the organization and its contract with employees. Consequently, the finding that as layoffs and reorganizations increase, affective commitment decreases, fits within the larger theoretical expectation that commitment is influenced by apparent changes in norms and conditions at the organizational level. At the same time, this finding informs one potential role of supervisor trust in enhancing organizational commitment. One part of the supervisor role is to interpret the organization and its management for employees (French & Bell, 1999). This is clearly a significant role in times of organizational turbulence when layoffs and reorganizations may be undertaken (Mishra, 1996). A trusted supervisor can provide believable interpretations of organizational intent and reassurance that the desirable value structure of the organization will be sustained. In the case of layoffs and reorganizations, it is critical that those who remain understand why these moves are necessary to counter turbulence (or for some other legitimate reason). Such understanding can serve as a means of maintaining morale and productivity when employees are faced with the now clichd doing more with less (Allen et al., 2003; Brockner, 1992). Lacking such interpretation and assurance can seriously erode employee perceptions of the organization,

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reducing affective commitment, and concomitantly making more difficult the processes of recruitment, retention, and organizational development. Furthermore, as indicated in the manufacturing firm data, serious lack of trust in supervisors complicates managerial succession planning when realignments and reorganizations are necessary. On a theoretical level, these data specify the relationship between supervisor trust and organizational commitment as one that depends on processes of communication and understanding whose success is contingent upon trust. This is quickly becoming a significant issue for the public sector, which can see layoffs and reorganizations not just directly associated with financial cutbacks but also indirectly as a function of the privatization or contracting-out phenomenon. The existing turbulent environment of state and local governments, especially in the context of now-looming record federal budget deficits, is likely to continue to fuel lost jobs through attrition, layoffs, privatization, and contracting out. Indeed, although the logic is not completely clear, Segal, Moore, and Blair (2003) argued that the federal government must outsource as a means of achieving President Bushs management agenda to shrink the size of government. If one acknowledges needs for reduction in force in governments, it is clear that the fashion in which these events are communicated and explained to those terminated and those who remain will affect the perception of organizational values by those internal and external to the organization. James and Tang (1996) marshal data that show that in the face of downsizing, those who remain employed have a strong need to define the changes in a sense of positive justice; failing this produces decreased productivity, burnout, low morale, and bizarre behaviors (p. 41) among employees. In this context, supervisor trustwhich stimulates communication and understandingbecomes a key feature of effective communication and, as such, a critical factor in maintaining organizational commitment. In the public sector, where commitment to the organization has been relied on as a means of ensuring productivity and competitiveness, a decline in affective commitment can portend serious difficulties for operations. Minimally, reduced commitment will reduce productivity and also probably reduce the ability of the public sector to attract and retain high-quality employees. On a practical level, one can begin to devise avenues to enhance organizational commitment. These include the enhancement of supervisor trust because of the supervisors role as link between management and line employees. Thus, the measures for promoting supervisor trustenhancing credibility, empowering employees, engaging participatory decision making, and encouraging feedbackare useful in cementing the supervisory

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role in reinforcing organizational commitment. At the same time, the literature is rich with suggestions regarding other direct interventions for enhancing organizational commitment, including fairness, integrity, openness, receptivity, promise fulfillment, and goodwill in dealing with employees (Diffe-Couch, 1984; Mayer et al., 1995). Ultimately, organizational commitment is a critical feature for the public sector, and supervisory trust is an indirect but extremely important factor in its maintenance.
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