Teachers' trust in primary school principals and supervisors in Dire Dawa administrative town

Purpose This study investigates relational trust within school hierarchies by examining teachers' trust in primary school principals and supervisors in Dire Dawa, Ethiopia. Moving beyond descriptive assessment, it evaluates dimensions of trust, demographic differences, and institutional factors within a highly centralized ecosystem. Design/methodology/approach Grounded in a pragmatist paradigm, a concurrent parallel mixed methods design was used. Quantitative data were gathered from 217 teachers via an adapted Omnibus Trust Scale; qualitative insights were derived from 12 key informants via semi-structured interviews. Data integration was achieved using an explicit joint-display merging technique. Findings Quantitative analysis reveals that teachers' trust falls significantly below the neutral midpoint of the scale, with trust in supervisors marginally higher. While gender and clustering show no impact, age and experience reveal a stark inverse relationship: veteran teachers exhibit significantly lower trust than early-career educators. Qualitative themes attribute this pervasive deficit to a “perceived mismatch” between rigid administrative monitoring under the centralized Ethiopian cluster supervision policy and the need for participatory decision-making. Research limitations/implications School effectiveness in Sub-Saharan Africa requires shifting from transactional inspection to relational, participatory leadership. The findings provides context-specific guidelines for regional policymakers to redesign leadership development programs. Originality/value This paper fills a critical regional gap by analyzing trust within the unique dual-leadership structure of East African primary education. It critically adapts Western relational trust models to the Global South, offering contextual evidence that extends existing relational trust theory to centralized educational systems.