A Study of the Impact of Openness and Trust on the Quality of Interpersonal Relations within Organizations

Abstract

Organizational efficiencies and effectiveness significantly depend on the motivation, involvement and efforts of employees across all levels. Employee performance, however, is affected by the quality of interpersonal communications within the organization, which plays a key role in influencing relationships, teamwork, conflict resolution, and motivation. Therefore, we need to study interpersonal communication within organizations in order to augment our understanding of the key issues within the field of Organizational Behavior. This exploratory study of interpersonal communication involved 368 randomly selected employees across three different levels from ten service-sector organizations. The objective of the study was to investigate the role of several key variables that are known to affect interpersonal communication, and to identify possible themes for future research. The data (quantitative and qualitative) was collected with the help of elaborate questionnaires and interviews, then tabulated and analysed by applying relevant tests like Chi Square, ANOVA, and Regression Analysis, generating intriguing findings. This paper focuses on the quality of the interpersonal relationships of the employees surveyed, and the role of key variables like Trust and Openness in affecting the perceived quality of these relationships. While the study found a positive relation between openness and the quality of interpersonal relationships within the organizations, surprisingly, it did not find a significant relation between trust and the quality of interpersonal relations. This seems to suggest that, within organizations, the quality of interpersonal relationships across the levels is influenced more by perceptions of openness than by the levels of trust between employees.