Developing Organizational Trust Through

Advancement of Employees’ Work Ethic

in a Post-Socialist ContextRaminta Puc_etait_e

Anna-Maija Lamsa

ABSTRACT. The paper highlights the dependence of

the level of organizational trust on work ethic and aims to

show that development of trust in organizations can

be stimulated by raising the level of work ethic with

organizational practices. Based on the framework by

Kanungo, R. N. and A. M. Jaeger (1990, ‘Introduction:

The Need for Indigenous Management In Developing

Countries’, in A. M. Jaeger and R. N. Kanungo (eds.),

Management in Developing Countries (Routledge, London),

pp. 1–23), historical–cultural analysis of the Lithuanian

context is carried out. The country is chosen as an

example of a post-socialist context where work ethic and

trust in the society tended to be rather low. The authors

discuss organizational practices, particularly the ones re-

lated to people management, which can facilitate devel-

opment of work ethic, and thus, trust in organizations

operating in a post-socialist context. The importance of a

processual approach to the development of organizational

trust and the ethical content of organizational practices,

which are aimed at developing organizational trust is

highlighted. Directions for further research are indicated.

KEY WORDS: context, Lithuania, organizational trust,

people management practices, post-socialist society, work

ethic

Introduction

Prior research shows that a high level of trust has

several advantages at societal and organizational

levels. It provides a foundation for social order,

successful cooperation and effective team-working

among society’s members and is positively related

to socio-economic development of a country (cf.

Fukuyama, 1995; Putnam et al., 1993). High trust

within a company helps to minimize risks and

decrease operating costs (Connell et al., 2003),

contributing to workplace security, employees’

productivity and improved life quality (Hosmer,

1995; Lewicki et al., 1998; Lewis and Weigert,

1985; Young and Daniel, 2003), which can account

for a company’s competitiveness in the long run.

Low trust, on the contrary, prevents societies

from utilizing available human capital, developing

large business networks and structures that can

produce economies of scale, synergy effect and

guarantee sustainable development. Furthermore, at

an organizational level, the costs of low trust can be

high because of people’s low commitment and

unwillingness to cooperate, risks for their misbe-

haviour, poor work quality and the need for control

(Wicks et al., 1999). Hence, low-trust societies and

organizations lose opportunities to gain competi-

tiveness in the global market. Consequently, as the

advantages of a high level of trust and the disad-

vantages of its low level are obvious, it is important

to understand what factors stimulate or hinder its

development.

In this paper, we are interested in the development

of organizational trust, which we define as a positive

attitude held by an organization’s member towards

another member that the other party will act by fair-

play rules and will not take an advantage of one’s

vulnerability and dependence in a risky situation

(Das and Deng, 1998; Lewis and Weigert, 1985). We

assume that the degree of trust can depend on several

factors (see e.g. Connell et al., 2003; Whitener,

1997; Whitener et al., 1998), of which work ethic,

i.e. moral principles, norms and rules that guide a

person’s behaviour at work, is an important one. The

principles, particularly compliance with quality

standards, self-discipline and commitment to pro-

fessional norms and job itself, have been regarded as

Journal of Business Ethics (2008) 82:325–337 � Springer 2008DOI 10.1007/s10551-008-9922-x

indicators of high work ethic in the Western thought

(Blau and Ryan, 1997; Lipset, 1990; Porter, 2005; cf.

Weber, 1997/1905). These features can be expected

to contribute to trustworthiness of people in a

workplace due to a lower risk of a negative attitude to

work and misbehaviour. Thus, based on a suggestion

by Lamsa and Puc_etait _e (2006), we assume that when

work ethic in a given society is low, organizational

trust will also be lower, and in the case of high work

ethic, organizational trust will also be higher.

Moreover, based on social constructionism (Berger

and Luckmann, 1966), we assume that both work

ethic and organizational trust are social phenomena

that result from interactions and interrelations among

members of a given society, profession and organi-

zation, which occur during the socialization process.

Socialization starts in childhood and continues

through youth and adulthood and during it, indi-

viduals learn about the socially defined expectations

and roles that a person in a given social position is

expected to follow (Hall, 1987). In other words,

socialization integrates people into the value sets and

practices of their socio-cultural and institutional

environments. This means that the level of people’s

work ethic and a respective degree of organizational

trust should be viewed as context-dependent and be

investigated and understood as such (Doney et al.,

1998; Lamsa and Puc _etait _e, 2006; Wicks and Berman,

2004).

Furthermore, since attitudes, behaviour norms

and principles and values of people can be formed

and developed through the socialization process, it

follows that work ethic and organizational trust are

not static but rather dynamic phenomena. For

example, the attitudes, behaviour norms and prin-

ciples that constitute work ethic in a certain context

may be changing due to pressures of the external

environment (e.g. growing society’s expectations

towards product quality) or may be changed by

internal, for instance, management’s endeavours

(e.g. training programmes to enhance employees’

competences). Hence, it can be expected that, with

the rising level of work ethic the degree of organi-

zational trust will also become higher.

The idea of enhancing work ethic, and conse-

quently, developing organizational trust through

management’s endeavours is of particular interest to

the societies such as, for instance, post-socialist ones

that face certain problems related to a rather low

level of work ethic (Ryan, 2006; Vasiljevien _e and

Freitakien _e, 2002) and a low level of trust (Ungvari-

Zrinyi, 2001; Valionis, 2000; Ziliukait _e et al., 2006).

It is possible that in such a context, organizational

trust will not occur at all and organizations will lose

opportunities for long-term development. More-

over, research on developing organizational trust in

such a context is rather scarce since most studies

dealing with the topic usually examine contexts in

which work ethic and the level of trust are assumed

to be rather high, and researchers neither recognize

nor explicitly bring forth this assumption.

Therefore, with this paper, we attempt to in-

crease context-sensitive knowledge about the topic

by analyzing socio-cultural factors that weaken

work ethic and, in turn, diminish the level of trust

in organizations. We also discuss particular organi-

zational principles and practices, especially the ones

related to people management, which can model

individuals’ attitudes and behaviour norms, and

thus, strengthen the level of work ethic in this kind

of context. In this paper, we focus particularly on

some historical–cultural features of a Lithuanian

society, which is taken as an example of a post-

socialist society where manifestations of low work

ethic and low trust still occur. Based on prior re-

search on the factors initiating trust (Doney et al.,

1998; Jones and George, 1998; Kickul et al., 2005;

Lewis and Weigert, 1985; McKnight et al., 1998;

Whitener, 1997), we argue that organizations and

their management operating in low-trust cultural

contexts, such as Lithuania, can catalyze organiza-

tional trust.

Theoretical framework for historical–

cultural analysis of the context

A level of work ethic and organizational trust is a

result of a certain culture. Culture on the societal

level is a general resource with which people in a

particular society understand their own and others’

behaviour (Leach, 1982). The societal level culture is

connected to an organizational level culture, and

these two levels can be understood as a dynamic

relationship (Kanungo and Jaeger, 1990). The

characteristics of the societal level culture constitute

an organization’s external environment, which

makes impact on its people’s actual behaviour and

326 Raminta Puc_etait_e and Anna-Maija Lamsa

shapes normative requirements for their conduct in

organizational life.

For the purposes of this paper, we use the

framework by Kanungo and Jaeger (1990) who

address this issue in their analysis of developing

countries and the impact of the external environ-

ment on employees’ motivation and performance

results as well as shared norms, values, attitudes,

beliefs and behaviour forms at work, called as

internal work culture. The dimension of internal

work culture consists of descriptive assumptions

about a human nature (i.e. what people are) and

prescriptive assumptions about people’s behaviour

(i.e. how people should behave). According to

Kanungo and Jaeger, these assumptions shape orga-

nizational practices and characterize work ethic as

well. Table I depicts the descriptive and prescriptive

assumptions of internal work culture.

The left side of the table depicts the main four

facets of organizational life affected by descriptive

assumptions about human nature. These are locus of

control, beliefs about human potential, time per-

spective and time span of action planning (Kanungo

and Jaeger, 1990, p. 8). Locus of control denotes the

extent to which a person believes that events can be

managed by herself/himself. The idea of locus of

control was originally presented by Rotter (1954).

An internal locus of control refers to a person’s belief

that through her/his own behaviour, she/he is able

to control the likelihood of results, while an external

locus of control refers to a belief that not much

connection between behaviour and the likelihood of

achieving results is seen. However, the concept of

locus of control, as introduced by Rotter, is

understood as a personality trait. From a psycho-

logical viewpoint, it means that a particular locus of

control is innate. On the other hand, we argue that

the attitudes of an individual whether she/he can

control her/his life or her/his life is dependent on

fate can be learned or changed. Hence, in this paper,

we use the term self-regulation to denote a degree to

which a person is capable to observe and judge one’s

own behaviour against a set of standards and give self

responses (see Ormrod, 1999).

Beliefs about human potential, for example, a

person’s creativity, resourcefulness, flexibility,

according to Kanungo and Jaeger (1990), determine

whether human capabilities are viewed as limited or

infinite. Consequently, the assumption that human

potential is limited shapes an organizational attitude

to people as costs, while the contrary assumption

maintains people as human beings that are capable

and willing to learn, and thus, worth developing.

Time perspective implies whether future events are

anticipated or just retrospective and whether present

events are managed. In turn, a respective time per-

spective determines whether decisions are made and

actions are planned from a long-term or a short-term

perspective.

As Kanungo and Jaeger (1990) put it, the knowl-

edge about how the things are (descriptive assump-

tions) affects people’s beliefs about the appropriate

behaviour at work (prescriptive assumptions). The

prescriptive assumptions of behaviour, as shown on

the right side of Table I, most strongly affect the

orientations of people to four organizational fields,

TABLE I

Characteristics of internal work culture (modified from Kanungo and Jaeger, 1990)

Descriptive assumptions

about human nature

Characteristics

of the descriptive

assumptions

Characteristics

of the prescriptive

assumptions

Prescriptive assumptions

about behaviour within

an organization

Self-regulation (1) Low (1) Reactive Task orientation

(2) High (2) Proactive

Human potential (1) Limited (1) Authoritarian People orientation

(2) Unlimited (2) Participative

Time perspective (1) Past and present oriented (1) Metaphysical Success orientation

(2) Future oriented (2) Pragmatic

Time span of action planning (1) Short-term (1) Relativistic Environment orientation

(2) Long-term (2) Principle-oriented

Developing Organizational Trust Through Advancement of Employees’ Work Ethic 327

i.e. tasks, people management, individual success and

environment. A prevailing belief that events are

beyond an individual’s control (low self-regulation)

is usually characterized by a passive/reactive task

orientation as contradistinguished from a proactive

one. Consequently, this explains why members of

organizations in such societies ‘do not strive for

challenge and excellence but rather remain content

with the status quo and mediocrity’ (Misra and

Kanungo, 1994, p. 35) in their professional lives.

Therefore, people may be less willing to get involved

in organizational processes and commit themselves to

the organization’s aims, especially if they do not own

the organization.

Such attitudes are frequent in organizations where

high power distance is prevailing in people man-

agement. In such cases, an authoritarian rather than a

participative approach to people management is

reasoned and supported. From the viewpoint of

work ethic, people endorse more conformity and

less independence in organizations with high power

distance, while independence and unconformity are

respected in organizations with low power distance.

Hierarchical relations also contribute to the judg-

ments of success based on metaphysical consider-

ations rather than pragmatic achievements that

demand personal initiativeness and assertiveness.

Prescriptive assumptions that favour a hierarchy in

social structures may also encourage an individual’s

conformism and lack of a principled position in

interpersonal dealings. Hence, the environment is

evaluated by relativistic rather than absolute and

universalizable principles such as, for example,

justice, fairness or integrity. Organization members

may tend to reason their decisions by the opinion of

some authority or justify their deeds by (the pressure

of) circumstances rather than their own autono-

mous, critical thinking. They can compromise

principles to safeguard their status or prove their

loyalty to a superior.

Each of the discussed eight categories has two

opposing alternatives. The first alternatives of

descriptive assumptions have a weakening effect on

work ethic, while the second ones are considered to

strengthen them. Consequently, the more charac-

teristic alternative 1 is to internal work culture, the

weaker work ethic is and vice versa. It can also be

assumed that to strengthen work ethic, organiza-

tional principles and practices which rest on

prescriptive assumptions of alternative 2 should be

developed. Yet, it should also be noted that orga-

nizational overemphasis on prescriptive alternative 2

may encourage opportunistic behaviour; thus, the

ideal case would be the ‘golden middle’ or the bal-

ance between the two alternatives.

Work ethic in Lithuania from a historical–

cultural perspective

In general, the socio-cultural context of post-socia-

list societies can be noted for a high degree of

uncertainty and a variety of ‘normative ailments’:

authoritarian management methods in social struc-

tures, lack of responsibility for one’s social function,

integrity and respect for the rule of law, weak civic

spirit, corruption etc. (Freitakien _e, 2001; Lewicka-

Strzałecka, 1999; Ryan, 2006; Ungvari-Zrinyi,

2001; Vasiljevien _e, 2002; Virovere and Kooskora,

2001; Ziliukait _e et al., 2006). These characteristics

have been changing, yet, as they are embedded in

the social fabric of the society, they come up to the

surface when favourable conditions form. Therefore,

knowledge of the forces that weave a given social

fabric can be crucial when creating management

practices directed at raising the level of work ethic

and developing organizational trust. At this point,

we take a look at the socio-cultural context of

Lithuania and explore the main historical–cultural

factors, i.e. a lifestyle of an agrarian society, a

Catholic worldview and socialist ideology, which

have significantly affected attitudes and behaviour

norms of the society’s members at work.

A general characteristic of agrarian societies is that

they tend to ascribe less importance to the notions of

honour and reputation in contrast to societies with

court culture or strong schools of craftsmanship (cf.

Elias, 2004/1969; Fukuyama, 1995). These notions

are directly related to psychosocial mechanisms such

as conscience and shame, which have an impact on

exercising self-regulation. Historically, some societies

had other impetuses for developing self-regulation.

For example, in capitalist societies, the system of the

market economy gave incentives to individuals to

exercise it. Lithuanians engaged in business as late as

the beginning of the twentieth century (Aleksand-

ravicius and Kulakauskas, 1996), and the develop-

ment of market economy was stopped by the 50 years

328 Raminta Puc_etait_e and Anna-Maija Lamsa

of a planned economy; therefore, mechanisms of the

free market hardly had a chance to regulate decision

making and behaviour of individuals.

A specific characteristic of the Lithuanian agrarian

society is serfdom that lasted from the end of the

sixteenth to the middle of the nineteenth century.

That period also accounted for weakening individ-

ual’s self-regulation and autonomy. Serfs were con-

sidered incapable of taking care of themselves and

their existence. Creation of social order and estab-

lishment of justice were merely based on the relation

of patronage (a higher status, position) and obedi-

ence (Pivoras, 2000, p. 16). Consequently, interre-

lations among the society members were perceived

as bipolar social categories of a ward and a patron.

The idea of subordination was further embedded by

religious (i.e. Catholic) convictions. As Lithuania

was little touched by the ideas of the Reformation,

obedience to the authority (e.g. priest, master) was

entrenched as an ideal of proper behaviour in the

public mentality. Therefore, Marxist ideology found

a cultivated ground for developing the understand-

ing that the relations between the employer and the

employee are the ones of the exploiter and the

exploited. To this day, the relations between the

manager and the employee in many Lithuanian

organizations have been perceived as hierarchical or

authoritarian relations (Vasiljevien _e and Freitakien _e,

2002).

Authoritarian relations are associated with a

metaphor of war, prevailing hostile attitudes between

the manager and employees as well as the divergence

of their aims (Kirkeby, 1998; Vasiljevien_e, 2000).

Such relations per se undermine trust (Brien, 1998;

Uslaner, 2002). They do not implicate a social actor’s

accountability to objectively measured performance

indicators and presuppose the need for strong con-

trol, which, in turn, creates favourable circumstances

for abuse of power. They also accustom employees to

the thought that just the manager knows what is the

best for the organization, and they themselves do not

have an influence on decision making. In this way,

employees’ autonomy, critical thinking and creativity

are discouraged. In such a context, reactive rather than

proactive orientations to tasks are strengthened. Thus,

people tend to behave like passive observers, avoid

responsibility and shift the responsibility for the

team’s results to the leader. On the other hand, the

given circumstances may account for individuals’

pessimistic attitudes to the future, helplessness,

unwillingness and incapability to change their life,

which became particularly obvious during the tran-

sition period in Lithuania (Sverdiolas, 2006; Vasilje-

vien _e, 2000). All in all, such an organizational

environment diminishes human potential, which,

consequently, can be viewed as limited.

Another aspect that affected work ethic in the

Lithuanian society was the socialist ideology’s

priority to the collective interest. During the soviet

times, private interest was subdued by various means.

For example, salaries were paid disregarding perfor-

mance results and individuals who demonstrated a

spirit of entrepreneurship were contemptuously

called ‘speculators’. Besides, sacrificing one’s private

interest was encouraged by mentally embedded

religious attitudes which promoted metaphysical,

spiritually exalted values, altruistic, good-will-based

intentions as well as reproached pragmatic values and

self-interested intentions. Disregard to an individual’s

interests and needs determined weakening integrity,

i.e. a widening gap between the normative and the

descriptive in social life, values and facts, words

(declarations) and deeds in societal and organizational

life.

The period of the socialist reign, in particular,

‘accustomed the society to imitating performance of

various standards, and established an attitude that

standards are lists of conventionalities of public life’

(Vasiljevien _e and Freitakien _e, 2002, p. 176). The set

five-year plans were so detached from the reality that

people got used to manipulating with performance

indicators, creative report-writing to make an

impression that progress had been made. For

example, an indicator for productivity of a textile

factory was the length of weaved cloth, and its width

was disregarded. Consequently, textile manufactur-

ers imitated achievement of the plan by weaving

narrow but long cloths (Ivanauskas, 2006). Besides,

deviancies from the norms were ‘fixed’ by informal

networking with appropriate persons who helped to

provide the needed resources or write inadequacies

off (cf. Michailova and Worm, 2003). These pro-

cesses strengthened relativistic orientations to the

environment and contributed to increasing uncer-

tainty, which diminished the possibility of long-term

planning and precluded future orientations.

Authoritarian management methods in social

structures and relativistic orientations also affected

Developing Organizational Trust Through Advancement of Employees’ Work Ethic 329

legislation, which was a privilege of the nomencla-

ture in the soviet period. They formulated laws to

safeguard their own position and power (although

officially it was claimed that law promoted ‘collec-

tive interest’). Exclusion of common citizens’

interests from law-making made laws irrational and

detached from the reality. Moreover, abidance by

law was not equally demanded from all citizens; thus,

law did not withstand the test of absolute justice and

universalizability. Therefore, violation of public

norms became an indicator of personal autonomy

(Ungvari-Zrinyi, 2001), which diminished respect

for the rule of law among common people and

motivated them to search for possibilities (‘gaps’) of

bypassing them. There are sayings in the languages of

most post-socialist countries which reflect a positive,

even romanticized attitude to disobedience to

laws and rules, e.g. ‘a law is like a pole, one can

easily bypass it’, ‘rules are created to break them’

(Vasiljevien _e and Freitakien _e, 2002, p. 185). This

factor has had a negative impact on trust develop-

ment since there was no cognitive knowledge to

reason expectations that the trustee will not take

advantage of the trustor.

Moreover, lack of respect for the rule of law

formed a culture of opportunism, which is charac-

terized by an (irrational) expectation of an individual

that she/he may in some way escape the conse-

quences and punishment for transgression of law or

rules. This expectation is particularly strong in the

Russian socio-cultural context, where it is described

by an expression ‘avos proneset’, which has also been

noted by foreign researchers (e.g. Morgan, 1998).

This attitude has mystified the reality, relating success

(even) in professional life with the idea of ‘blind

fortune’ or favourable circumstances but not with the

accomplishment of one’s professional functions and

duties by the standard of excellence.

It should be mentioned, however, that some of

the characteristics described above are changing.

According to the recent public surveys, metaphysical

orientations to success have been changing and the

number of people thinking that they have the free-

dom of choice and are capable to control their lives

is increasing (Ziliukait _e et al., 2006). However,

other characteristics remain stable. For example,

over 70% of the population still consider the policy

of ‘a strong fist’ as the most suitable one for ruling

the country (Ziliukait _e et al., 2006).

In Table II, the external environmental features of

the Lithuanian socio-cultural context and the

descriptive and prescriptive assumptions of internal

work culture within the organization are summa-

rized. As we have shown in our analysis, many

characteristics of the external environment in Lith-

uania accounted for the prevalence of metaphysical

orientations and relativistic principles, lack of indi-

viduals’ self-regulation, initiativeness, commitment

to work and an organization, practices based on strict

control and authoritarian management methods in

internal work culture of organizations. These char-

acteristics particularly point to alternative 1 of the

prescriptive assumptions in the applied framework.

This implies that members of the society accept

them as regularities of social life through the

socialization process and sustain them with their

attitudes and behaviour forms.

The analyzed socio-cultural factors and charac-

teristics of internal work culture have made a sig-

nificant impact on work ethic in the Lithuanian

society. Weak self-regulation, abuse of power, lack

of respect for the rule of law and a perceived

divergence between the prescriptive and the

descriptive resulted in cynical, sceptic, even nihilistic

attitudes to normative regulations of behaviour and

determined an individual’s negligent attitude to

work, which is illustrated by a popular saying ‘work

is not a wolf, it will not run to the forest’ (Vasilje-

vien _e and Freitakien _e, 2002, p. 188). Disregard of

personal interest, particularly, inadequate rewarding

from an organization for one’s performance demo-

tivated the most talented, initiative and creative

persons. The period of equality disregarding indi-

vidual achievements, merits and performance results

stimulated the use of organizational property for

individual benefit, ranging from petty theft to

embezzlement (e.g. during the privatization). None

of the described behaviours at work is based on high

work ethic, e.g. responsibility and accountability to a

professional role or standards of excellence. There-

fore, many organizations in Lithuania still suffer from

the consequences of employees’ alienation to work

and lack of loyalty to their organizations (cf.

Gruzevskis et al., 2006).

As a result, these factors undermine the common

normative background that could allow employees

and managers to predict each other’s behaviour and

decrease the risk that the trustee will not take an

330 Raminta Puc_etait_e and Anna-Maija Lamsa

advantage of the trustor’s vulnerability. Therefore,

management in Lithuanian organizations is faced

with a particular challenge to construct organiza-

tional processes, practices, structures which would

diminish the effect of the discussed historical–cul-

tural factors, stimulate formation of alternatives 2 of

the adopted framework by Kanungo and Jaeger

(1990) and create a context in which work ethic

would be heightened and trust building would be

possible and perceived as advantageous.

Developing organizational trust with

organizational practices

Based on the idea of social constructionism that the

socialization process changes individuals’ attitudes

and behaviour, which occur as a result of learning in

a certain context, we suggest that to change attitudes

and behaviour forms that constitute low work ethic

and preclude the development of organizational

trust, the management of Lithuanian organizations

should pay particular attention to the ethical char-

acter of their practices, especially the ones related to

people management. Ethical principles on which

organizational practices are based are particularly

important since they shape internal work culture and

a certain level of work ethic, and through them

affect employees’ moral behaviour at work. Thus,

they determine whether members of an organization

have a basis to trust each other (cf. Brien, 1998;

Stevens, 2008).

If a strategic decision to change the organization’s

internal work culture is made by management, we

consider that, first, people management practices

such as hiring, evaluation, development, rewarding

the performance as well as disciplinary actions in

Lithuanian organizations should be based on the

principles missed out in social life, i.e. justice, fair-

ness, accountability, transparency and universaliz-

ability. Justice and fairness in people management

practices are in particular needed to dispose

employees positively towards their employer and

diminish the possibility of alienation to the com-

pany, petty theft which, according to the prior

research, are frequent in the events of organizational

injustice (Ambrose et al., 2002; Greenberg, 1993;

Kim and Mauborgne, 1997). Accountability, espe-

cially when it is practised by managers, contributes

to diminishing the possibility for power abuse and

TABLE II

Summary of the historical–cultural analysis of internal work culture in the Lithuanian context

External socio-cultural context

Agrarian society Catholic worldview Socialist ideology

Low-level of self-regulation

Social order and establishment of

justice based on the relation of

patronage and obedience

Obedience to the authority, e.g. a

priest and/or the master

Spirituality, not pragmatism stressed

Sacrifice of one’s private interest

encouraged

Bipolar social categories of the

exploiters and the exploited

Serving the system and collective

interest emphasized

Lack of integrity and respect for the

rule of law

Internal work culture

Descriptive assumptions about human nature Prescriptive assumptions about behaviour within

an organization

A degree of self-regulation: rather weak than strong

Human potential: rather limited than unlimited

Time perspective: rather present oriented but

changing to more future oriented

Time span of action planning: rather short-term but

changing to long-term

Task orientation: rather reactive but changing to proactive

People orientation: rather authoritarian than participative

Success orientation: rather metaphysical than pragmatic

Environment orientation: rather relativistic than principle-

oriented

Developing Organizational Trust Through Advancement of Employees’ Work Ethic 331

promoting responsibility, transparency and univers-

alizability of moral norms in the organization. Thus,

articulation and implementation of these principles in

the mentioned practices of people management can

help to create predictability and security of the

environment, and thus, serve as (even) a therapeutic

instrument of eliminating the conditions for the

culture of opportunism. Consequently, orientations

relating the present with the future and long-term

planning could be promoted, which inevitably points

to the necessity of following ethical principles on

the regular basis. Moreover, these principles enable

the transformation of the interrelations between the

manager and the employee from the ones based on

subordination and subservience to partnership-based

ones, i.e. the model of the interrelations, which helps

to create a self-regulating community of practice and

contributes to developing organizational trust.

Moreover, engendering ethical principles in

organizational practices may require certain pro-

cesses and structures of their own, such as an ethics

code, ethics training, an ethics committee or an

officer, social-ethical auditing etc. (Kaptein, 1998;

Lozano, 2002). When such instruments are present,

and appreciation of following ethical principles at

work is a part of an organization’s work culture,

employees are stimulated to reconsider their beliefs

about ‘proper’ management of an organization.

Otherwise, managers’ accountability may be sense-

less if employees have undergone socialization in

organizations with a hierarchical structure, where

managers’ decisions may not be (loudly) questioned

and their reasoning is not (even) expected. It is likely

that such employees may associate the idea of sub-

ordination with not contradicting the manager, even

though they disagree with him/her. Or, even worse,

they may regard such manager’s attempts as inability

to manage since a competent manager, in their eyes,

can be associated with the one who uses the policy

of ‘a strong fist’. Hence, ethics training that reasons

the importance of ethical principles to the organi-

zation and every individual in it and reveals eco-

nomic damage of ethical issues at work can stimulate

employees to question the stereotypes.

Stressing an economic aspect and pragmatic

reasoning of ethical principles are particularly

necessary in the post-socialist context. They are

needed to diminish widely spread scepticism and

irony towards ethics in general. Since people have

been used to the divergence of exalted abstract ideals

and actual deeds in social life, using metaphysical

reasoning may considerably weaken the possibility of

accepting ethical principles as an integral part of

organization’s work culture. Thus, to enhance the

level of work ethic, and consequently, develop

organizational trust, post-socialist organizations need

to convince their employees that high work ethic is

beneficial from the viewpoint of business (e.g. cus-

tomer satisfaction, company reliability and good

reputation in the society) and just indirectly show

that following ethical principles is spiritually

rewarding and enriching.

Furthermore, employees’ participation in creation

of an ethics code or at least formulation of the com-

pany’s set of values can teach individuals to critically

reflect the extent to which ethical principles are or can

be realized in their organization, which behaviour

norms preclude their realization and which organi-

zational practices determine misbehaviour. Such

practices may strengthen employees’ orientations to

quality improvement and direct actions at creating

integrity. Besides, the fact that normative regulations

were self-created and reasoned by mutual benefit can

strengthen employees’ respect for the rule of law.

Hence, employees’ possibilities to predict each other’s

behaviour could be considerably strengthened.

The effect of ethics programmes could be ampli-

fied if an organization has a qualified ethics officer or

even an ethics department. However, since the

Lithuanian institutions of higher education do not

prepare specialists who could professionally take care

of ethics in companies because their demand in the

labour market is still low, development of ethics

officers remains a matter of an organization’s

in-house training. Higher education schools in

Lithuania can help them by providing courses on

business ethics or corporate responsibility, which are

taught in all the universities. Thus, it can be expected

that the young generations of managers will be aware

of the possibilities of ethics programmes to create an

environment that promotes high work ethic and

advances organizational trust.

Some other characteristics of the internal work

culture of Lithuanian organizations at alternative 1 of

the framework could be solved with the methods of

participative management. Employee participation

can have numerous positive effects on advancing

work ethic and organizational trust. For example, by

332 Raminta Puc_etait_e and Anna-Maija Lamsa

involving employees into decision making, an

organization acknowledges them as specialists,

strengthens their self-respect and motivates them to

behave in a trustworthy manner to have a reputation

of a reliable professional. In this way, the notion of

honour, which did not evolve in the historical

processes in the society, starts playing an important

role in switching on self-regulation. Moreover,

employee participation in making organizational

decisions that directly affect the quality of their life,

provided opportunities to voice their expectations

and interests express an organization’s recognition of

the legitimacy of an individual’s interest. Hence,

these practices may increase employees’ sense of

ownership, encourage their interest in the sur-

rounding as well as foster initiativeness and pro-

activeness. In this way, alienation to the workplace

and work itself could be diminished and the level of

work ethic could be enhanced.

Yet, according to the study by Tzafrir (2005),

employee participation correlates with high trust.

This means that managers allow employees to par-

ticipate in decision making when organizational trust

is high. The empowerment of employees involves a

high degree of dependency, which implies vulner-

ability of the manager. Thus, if the levels of work

ethic and trust in the society are low, managers will

not be willing to allow their employees to participate

in decision making. This would mean that partici-

pative management is impossible in the post-socialist

context, and organizations operating there are

caught in the vicious circle.

However, we suggest that the vicious circle could

be broken if training of participation skills is provided.

This means that ethics training, which we discussed

above, could contribute to moulding appropriate

attitudes to the phenomenon of participation. For

example, such training could strengthen attitudes that

power in a discussion rests not with an authority (e.g.

manager) but with a better argument. On the other

hand, the learnt ideas should have the conditions for

application. Thus, managers face a challenge to learn

to accept the criticism if it is constructive and not to

directly or indirectly sanction the criticizing

employees. Considering the peculiarities of the

country’s socio-cultural context, participative man-

agement is a challenge to Lithuanian organizations.

Yet, if an organization makes a strategic decision to

create an internal work culture that fosters organiza-

tional trust and builds the basis for implementation of

participative management practices through training,

the challenge can be answered in the long term.

All the discussed people management practices

that help to remodel the organizational environment

and change attitudes and behaviour norms of the

organization’s members require genuine support and

commitment from managers. Studies in other socio-

cultural contexts have shown that manager’s integ-

rity and zero tolerance to violation of commonly set

ethical principles are particularly important to

motivate employees to assume responsibility for their

decisions and actions (Trevino and Weaver, 2003;

Weaver et al., 1999) and act in a trustworthy way.

Managers’ behaviour and a personal example of

following moral norms at work undoubtedly influ-

ence internal work culture. However, the develop-

ment of organizational trust is not and should not be

tied just to personal traits, (technical) competences

and their development. On the one hand, they are

important because moral action, ethical decision

making, competent judgement and performance

results that meet quality standards determine

whether a decision to become vulnerable and

dependent on another person will be made. On the

other hand, if the development of organizational

trust focusses just on an individual level, there is a

risk that with the change of the manager, the ethical

content of the organization will degrade. Therefore,

designing organizational practices that entail ethical

principles and processes and structures for their

enforcement remains one of the most crucial

requirements for the management of organizations

operating in the context with a low level of work

ethic and trust.

Conclusions and suggestions for further

research

With this paper, we have contributed to the existing

literature on developing organizational trust. By

conducting a historical–cultural analysis of the

Lithuanian society, we have shown that organiza-

tional trust is a context-dependent phenomenon,

which is a perspective often overlooked in prior

research on the topic (Lamsa and Puc _etait_e, 2006;

Wicks and Berman, 2004). Hence, understanding the

characteristics of a context, such as a socio-cultural

Developing Organizational Trust Through Advancement of Employees’ Work Ethic 333

one, can help a company to design practices and

structures for the development of organizational

trust. Assuming that organizational trust is interre-

lated with work ethic prevailing in a given society,

we argued that the management of companies

operating in post-socialist societies, where the level

of organizational trust is often low due to low work

ethic, can develop organizational trust by raising their

employees’ work ethic with people management

practices based on ethical principles.

We based the historical–cultural analysis of a

post-socialist society on a framework by Kanungo

and Jaeger (1990) that helped to highlight the

characteristics of the socio-cultural context, which

influences internal work culture of Lithuanian

organizations. However, we questioned the original

framework by Kanungo and Jaeger (1990) who used

the theory of locus of control (Rotter, 1954) as a

feature of internal work culture. We think that their

idea paints a pessimistic view of a human being, and

the application of the framework can lead to, even

reify, an understanding of an individual as a passive,

even irresponsible social actor since locus of control

is defined as an innate psychological feature. It is

suggested that the framework gains from reformu-

lation made in this study. We replaced locus of

control by self-regulation in the framework, and

thus, a more positive and active view of a human

being who is capable to learn and develop his/her

work ethic becomes possible.

The analysis of the socio-cultural context of

Lithuania indicates that the given society often faces

weak self-regulation, lack of initiativeness and self-

confidence, relativistic and fatalistic orientations to

the environment among its members as well as

authoritarian management methods in its social

structures. Considering the mentioned peculiarities

of the context, we suggest that the management of

Lithuanian organizations should pay particular

attention to the practices of decision making and the

way they promote ethical principles in the organi-

zational context. We have argued that people

management practices in post-socialist organizations

should in particular stress the principles of justice,

fairness, transparency, accountability and universal-

izability to establish the feeling of security and pre-

dictability at the workplace. Such an environment

can initiate organizational trust.

Moreover, an organization’s ethics training that is

aimed at developing employees’ understanding of

the necessity to follow ethical principles in practice is

very important to find an agreement about the

principles, norms, values which should be followed

to gain acknowledgement and respect for reliable

behaviour. Besides, ethics training contributes to

enhancing the skills of employee participation in

decision making, which is needed to change the

quality of the interrelations between the manager

and the employee. Hence, implementation of the

mentioned principles and practices in a post-socialist

organization could eliminate premises for disrespect

for the rule of law as well as lack of integrity and

reduce the fear of organization’s members to become

vulnerable and dependent on each other. In this

article, we focussed on the role of in-house training,

but we think that this is also a challenge for educa-

tional institutions, where prospective employees and

managers are trained and developed. Thus, the role

of educational institutions as well as that of teachers

in shaping students’ work ethic is an important

aspect for developing trust in organizations in the

future.

We are aware that the analyzed historical–cultural

processes are not analogous in all post-socialist

societies and comparisons among them can be made

just on particular aspects. Moreover, Lithuania’s

socio-cultural context as well as that of other post-

socialist societies is shifting, and managers’ attitudes

to employees as well as employees’ work ethic are

changing. The impact of the EU directives, partic-

ularly the ones concerning the employee’s rights,

makes organizations reconsider their management

methods and practices. If practices are not radically

changed, managers are at least aware that, for

example, abusive behaviour is no longer considered

a norm and that it is not only the individual who

should be blamed for an improper behaviour at

workplace. The need to analyze, restructure and

re-engineer organizational practices, which may

account for employees’ misbehaviour, is dictated by

the processes of globalization, increasing competi-

tion and aspirations of Lithuanian companies to gain

an international reputation. Private companies, in

particular, are motivated to learn from good foreign

practices, and positive examples of people manage-

ment can be detected in post-socialist organizations.

334 Raminta Puc_etait_e and Anna-Maija Lamsa

The limitation of this paper is that it is theoretical

in nature. Consequently, we suggest that an empirical

investigation into the interrelations between ethical

people management practices, and on the one hand,

processes and structures such as an ethics code, ethics

training and ethics auditing which are meant to

engender ethical principles in an organization and on

the other hand, the level of organizational trust in a

post-socialist context, is needed in the future.

Measuring the correlation between people manage-

ment practices based on ethical principles and

employees’ misbehaviours typically caused by low

work ethic is another aspect that could be covered by

a quantitative study on the development of organi-

zational trust. Thus, operationalization of the notions

of work ethic and organizational trust is needed for

prospective research. Moreover, the topic on the

development of organizational trust could also gain

from qualitative researches. Our assumptions in this

paper could be validated or denied by case studies as

well as action research of companies, which made a

strategic decision to develop organizational trust in a

context where employees’ work ethic is low. Inter-

views with managers, especially the ones who are

responsible for industrial organizations, could reveal

perceptions of historically developed forms of mis-

behaviour, which are prevailing in the society and

suggest other methods of developing organizational

trust in a post-socialist context.

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Raminta Puc_etait_eKaunas Faculty of Humanities,

University of Vilnius,

Muitin_es 8, Kaunas, Lithuania

E-mail: pucetaite@vukhf.lt

Anna-Maija Lamsa

School of Business and Economics,

University of Jyvaskyla,

P.O. Box 35, 40014 Jyvaskyla, Finland

E-mail: lamsa@econ.jyu.fi

Developing Organizational Trust Through Advancement of Employees’ Work Ethic 337