The Neuroscience of Organizational Trust and Business Performance: Findings From United States Working Adults and an Intervention at an Online Retailer

Abstract

This paper reports findings from a nationally representative sample of working adults to quantify how a culture trust improves business performance. Analysis of the national sample showed that organizational trust and alignment with the company’s purpose are associated with higher employee incomes, longer job tenure, greater job satisfaction, less chronic stress, improved satisfaction with life, and higher productivity. Employees working the highest quartile of organizational trust had average incomes 10.3% higher those working in the middle quartile of trust (p = 0.000) indicating that trust increases productivity. In order to demonstrate the causal effect of trust on business performance, we created an intervention to increase organizational trust in a division facing high job turnover at a large online retailer. The intervention increased organizational trust by 6% and this improved job retention by 1%. These studies show that management practices that increase organizational trust have salubrious effects on business performance.

The impact of organizational trust on the performance of police departments

“…A commercially available survey (Ofactor, Envisia Learning, Santa Monica, CA) was used to quantify eight sets of behaviors upon which organizational trust depends. The survey development has been discussed extensively elsewhere (Johannsen and Zak 2021;Zak 2017a) and the survey itself is reproduced in the Appendix. The average of the eight factors, each assessed on a 7-point Likert scale, is used to assess overall organizational trust.…”

“…The average of the eight factors, each assessed on a 7-point Likert scale, is used to assess overall organizational trust. Influencing one or more of the eight factors can raise organizational trust and thereby performance in businesses and non-profits (Johannsen and Zak 2021). This analysis has not yet been applied to police departments.…”

“…This acronym stands for Ovation, eXpectation, Yield, Transfer, Openness, Caring, Invest, and Natural. These are taken from prior work on organizational trust in for-profit and non-profit organizations (Johannsen and Zak 2021;Zak 2017aZak , 2017b and are briefly defined here in the context of policing. It is worth emphasizing that the survey queries respondents about behaviors, not feelings or impressions, when quantifying the OXYTOCIN factors.…”

“…Trust and Purpose have been shown to reinforce each other to increase engagement and job satisfaction. Indeed, people working in high Trust, high Purpose organizations report that they enjoy their jobs more than those in organizations lacking Trust or Purpose (Johannsen and Zak 2021). The intrinsic satisfaction police department members get from their jobs increases organizational commitment and reduces job departures (Brunetto et al 2012).…”

“…We focus here on organizational trust because of recent research that has identified the neurochemical oxytocin as a key neurologic signal that motivates trustworthiness (Terris et al 2018;Zak 2004Zak , 2005Zak , 2008. Laboratory experiments and field studies in organizations have demonstrated its powerful impact of human behavior and on multiple measures of organizational performance (Johannsen and Zak 2021;Zak 2017aZak , 2017bZak , 2018.…”