Performance in Microfinance Institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Role of Organisational Trust

Abstract

The current research examines organisational trust in three Sub-Saharan African countries. The study seeks to investigate organisational trust’s relationship with desirable workplace outcomes. The sample surveyed 423 loan officers and loan officer supervisors across 22 different microfinance institutions in Tanzania, Zambia, and Uganda.

Relationships between two different referents of supervisor and top management trustworthiness perceptions and organisational trust attitudes were examined with organisation commitment as an attitude mediator on intention to quit and behaviour variables in-role behaviour and organisational citizenship behaviour. The contribution of the research involves testing the frequently quoted but less often used Gillespie (2003) reliance and disclosure measures of organisational trust in both an industry and countries that organisational trust research never previously occurred. Inasmuch, the study tests the models in the microfinance industry in Zambia, Tanzania, and Uganda examined through the confirmatory factor analysis of structural equation modeling of the structural model.

The study supports existing knowledge that trustworthiness perceptions in top management do relate positively with organisational trust, but also finds several differences in relationships between variables compared to previous studies conducted in North America, Europe, and Asia. The research finds that the Mayer, Allen et al. (1995) trustworthiness measures have mixed relationships to organisational trust in contrast with previous studies. Perceptions of supervisor ability have no significant relationship with reliance and actually hold a negative relationship with disclosure. Benevolence perceptions relate significantly and positively only with disclosure and not reliance while integrity relates strongly with both reliance and disclosure. Employee intentions to rely on both supervisors and top management relate positively and strongly with organisation commitment, but disclosure and organisation commitment possess no significant relationship.

Organisation commitment relates positively and significantly with in-role behaviour and organisation citizenship behaviour in both models. However, organisation commitment relates unexpectedly positively with intention to quit in the supervisor model, but negative in the top management model as found in previous research studies.

The supervisor hypothesized model had a statistically significant chi-squared value x2 (394) = 707.168, df = 384, p < .0001, and showed appropriateness of fit with RMSEA = .046, CFI = .941, SRMR = .048. The top management hypothesized model had a statistically significant chi-squared value x2 (394) = 700.034, df = 384, p < .0001, and showed appropriateness of fit with RMSEA = .046, CFI = .942, SRMR = .047. Plausible explanations are discussed along with implications for theory and practice.