Do leadership practices impact trust-based management and organizational outcomes? Evidence from a trust reform in a Scandinavian city

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore how leadership practices impact the implementation of trust-based management and how trust-based management relates to organizational outcomes in trust reforms in public sector organizations. Design/methodology/approach The paper uses partial least squares path modeling (PLS-PM) to analyze aggregated, survey data from 1,006 respondents in 2021 and 801 respondents in 2024 pooled to 52 organizational units in a Norwegian city that implemented a trust reform in 2017. Findings Integrated transformational and transactional leadership in 2021 was positively and significantly related to trust-based management measured two years later, and trust-based management was positively and significantly related to organizational unit performance and organizational citizenship behavior, and negatively and significantly related to intention to leave. Research limitations/implications The paper is based on data from one, big organization in a high-trust society. Further research is needed to explore the applicability of the finding across different organizational and institutional contexts. Practical implications This paper provides empirical-based knowledge about how organizations and managers can utilize integrated leadership in implementing more trust-based management to improve organizational outcomes. Social implications Increased knowledge about factors that impact the implementation of trust-based management with positive organizational outcomes is important for many organizations and societies that are designing public sector reforms or facing distrust within as well as across organizations. Originality/value Prior research has studied how trust, translation and information flows impact trust-based management and how trust-based management impacts innovation. This paper complements prior research with an original analysis of how integrated leadership impacts trust-based management and organizational outcomes.