Abstract:
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.
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.
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.
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.
