Orientation: The orientation of this study was towards authentic leadership and its influence on workplace trust and organisational citizenship behaviour in the public health care sector.Research purpose: The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of authentic leadership on organisational citizenship behaviour, through workplace trust among public health care employees in South Africa. The objective was to determine whether authentic leadership affects organisational citizenship behaviour through workplace trust (conceptualised as trust in the organisation, immediate supervisor and co-workers).Motivation for the study: Employees in the public health care industry are currently being faced with a demanding work environment which includes a lack of trust in leadership. This necessitated the need to determine whether authentic leadership ultimately leads to extra-role behaviours via workplace trust in its three referents.Research design, approach and method: A quantitative cross-sectional survey design was used with employees the public health care sector in South Africa (N = 633). The Authentic Leadership Inventory, Workplace Trust Survey and Organisational Citizenship Behaviour Scale were administered to these participants.Main findings: The results indicated that authentic leadership has a significant influence on trust in all three referents, namely the organisation, the supervisor and co-workers. Both trust in the organisation and trust in co-workers positively influenced organisational citizenship behaviour. Conversely, authentic leadership did not have a significant influence on organisational citizenship behaviour. Finally, authentic leadership had a significant indirect effect on organisational citizenship behaviour through trust in the organisation and trust in co-workers. Trust in the organisation was found to have the strongest indirect effect on the relationship between authentic leadership and organisational citizenship behaviour.Practical/managerial implications: The main findings suggest that public health care institutions would benefit if leaders are encouraged to be more authentic as this might result in increases in both trust among co-workers and in the organisation. Consequently, employees might be more likely to exert additional effort in their work.Contribution/value-add: Limited empirical evidence exists with regard to the relationship between authentic leadership, workplace trust in its three referents and organisational citizenship behaviour. This study aimed to contribute to the limited number of studies conducted.

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The aim of this study was to investigate whether there were different types of unemployed people in South Africa. A psychosocial typology, developed in Europe, identified five types of unemployed people based on their attitudes, behaviour, and experiences. To determine whether the same types could be found in South Africa, we studied a convenience sample of 381 unemployed individuals residing in the Potchefstroom area in the North West province in South Africa. Latent class analysis indicated that only four types of unemployed could be identified in this study: optimists, the desperate, the discouraged, and the adapted. Significant associations were found among these types and background characteristics, mostly in line with previous research. The results may be utilised to design interventions tailored to the different types of unemployed people.