Understanding How Perceived Leader Integrity Affects Follower Trust: Lessons From the Use of Multidimensional Measures of Integrity and Trust

Abstract

Even though much research has emerged recently supporting the importance of perceived leader integrity judgments on how followers develop trust in their leaders, our efforts to understand possible mechanisms for these relationships have not yet yielded detailed explanations. One reason for this is that most research on perceived leader integrity and trust has used unidimensional measures of each construct, even though recent research has called for more complex treatments of them. The purpose of this study is to couple the use of a recently developed, multidimensional measure of perceived leader integrity with a multidimensional measure of trust to examine possible explanations of how they relate. Results support the value of modeling perceived integrity in two dimensions and support a more nuanced model of how integrity may affect trust when trust is similarly modeled as multiple dimensions. We discuss the implications of these findings for our understanding of how leader integrity may affect trust and other outcomes.

Keywords

leader integrity integrity measurement value congruence trust

A recent debate in The Leadership Quarterly over the nature and utility of leader character (Hannah & Avolio, 2011; Quick & Wright, 2011) offers evidence that leadership scholars are interested in how the “interpenetrable and habitual qualities within individuals” (Quick & Wright, 2011, p. 976) may form and affect the bases of effective leader–follower relations. They argue that leader effectiveness may emerge from core qualities of the leader and not simply from the context in which leaders lead.

Perceived leader integrity represents one attribution of leader character that is a potent predictor of a number of follower attitudes and measures of performance (Davis & Rothstein, 2006; Moorman & Grover, 2009; Parry & Proctor-Thomson, 2002; Simons, Tomlinson, & Leroy, 2012). Perceived leader integrity indicates leader character because it emerges from follower impressions of the connections between a leader’s moral character, his or her values, his or her words, and his or her behaviors (Dunn, 2009). While the study of leader integrity has produced an active stream of observations and tested conclusions, much of the research on how leader integrity affects followers continues to illuminate whether integrity perceptions directly relate to follower outcomes. For example, Simons et al. (2012) studied how behavioral integrity—defined as the perceived alignment between a leader’s words and actions—is instrumental in driving a variety of follower judgments and behaviors. Summarizing research conducted over two decades, Simons et al. (2012) report relationships between behavioral integrity and job satisfaction (e.g., Palanski, 2008), organizational commitment (e.g., Simons & McLean Parks, 2000), follower engagement (e.g., Vogelgesang & Lester, 2008), perceptions of justice (e.g., Dineen, Lewicki, & Tomlinson, 2006; Simons, Friedman, Lui, & McLean Parks, 2007), job performance (e.g., Way, Simons, & Tuleja, 2010), and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs; e.g., Dineen et al., 2006; Tomlinson, Lewicki, & Ash, 2014).

Less studied are the more complex ways in which integrity perceptions may affect outcomes and how these relationships may be influenced by other related variables. One reason for this may be that leader integrity has been operationalized and measured as a unitary construct based on a definition that may only sample part of what integrity really means to followers. Moorman, Darnold, and Priesemuth (2013) argued that leader integrity is a more complicated construct than represented by unidimensional measures and that modeling different dimensions of integrity judgments may offer researchers the opportunity to understand its causes and consequences more deeply. This concern was recently echoed by Tomlinson et al. (2014) in their call to identify moral integrity as separate from behavioral integrity.

The purpose of this present study is to use a multidimensional measure of leader integrity to explore how follower perceptions of leader integrity may come to affect the nature of the follower’s relationship with the leader. In this study, we employ measures of both integrity and trust that model their constructs in two dimensions, which allow us to hypothesize and test distinct mechanisms that explain and add nuance to the relationship between integrity and trust. Furthermore, we propose and test whether value congruence may serve as a mediator of the relationship between one dimension of integrity and trust while serving as a moderator of the relationship between the other dimension of integrity and trust. Our purpose is to move past the simple examination of whether integrity affects trust to a more complex model using different dimensions of both integrity and trust to understand how this important relationship develops.

Leadership, Integrity, and Trust

The ways in which integrity and trust relate are useful to study because follower trust is such an important driver of leadership success (Bligh & Kohles, 2013; Dirks, 2000; Dirks & Ferrin, 2002; Gillespie & Mann, 2004; Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Moorman, & Fetter, 1990; Scandura & Pellegrini, 2008). One reason why trust and leadership are so connected is that trusting relationships between leaders and followers are defined by smooth, effective exchanges while relationships that lack trust may be defined by friction and inefficiencies (Lewicki, Tomlinson, & Gillespie, 2006; Mayer, Davis, & Schoorman, 1995; Sitkin & Roth, 1993). While differing definitions of trust exist (see McEvily & Tortoriello, 2011, for a review), one common cited definition is that trust is “the psychological state comprising the intention to accept vulnerability based upon positive expectations of the intentions or behavior of another (Rousseau, Sitkin, Burt, & Camerer, 1998, p. 395). Increasing follower trust in the leader is important to effective leader–follower relationships because it prevents followers’ social vulnerability from restricting their interest in acting in response to leader directives (Möllering, Bachmann, & Lee, 2004). If followers trust their leaders, that is, if they are willing to be vulnerable, have positive expectations that their interests will be protected, and assess their leaders’ intentions as sincere (Burke, Sims, Lazzara, & Salas, 2007; Butler, 1991; Dirks, 2000; Mayer & Davis, 1999; Mayer & Gavin, 2005; Rousseau et al., 1998), they could bypass the need to establish inefficient safeguards and instead act efficiently, relying only on promises of benefits and expectations of success.

How then can perceptions of leader integrity help followers develop trusting relationships with their leaders? Mayer et al. (1995) identified integrity as one of three fundamental characteristics considered by trustors as they decide to trust another. Simons and colleagues (Simons et al., 2007; Simons & Hagen, 2006; Simons & McLean Parks, 2000) supported this relationship and also found that trust mediates the relationship between behavioral integrity and other outcomes such as organizational commitment and job satisfaction (Hinkin & Schriesheim, 2009; Kannan-Narasimhan & Lawrence, 2010).

The reason why integrity may affect trust may lie in the type and amount of information about a leader that informs follower perceptions of integrity. In a review of the role of trust in the leadership process, Kramer (2011, p. 137) argues that “the perception of vulnerability or risk that is central to trust is derived from the trustor’s uncertainty regarding the motives, intentions, and actions of the prospective trustee.” He further writes,

If trust between leaders and their constituents is largely predicated on constituents’ positive expectations and beliefs regarding their leaders, then both the explicit and tacit understandings regarding what their leaders are likely to do may be critical in creating and sustaining trust. (p. 143)

In their discussion of presumptive trust, Kramer and Lewicki (2010, p. 257) suggest followers seek to determine if they can trust leaders by being “vigilant social perceivers who are attentive to a variety of ambient social cues” regarding whether a leader is trustworthy. Followers seek what Bacharach and Gambetta (2001, p. 151) called “trust-warranting properties” that offer diagnostic information on which they can make a prediction of a leader’s future behavior. These trust-warranting properties may emerge from observable personal attributes of leaders, social or relational ties that may exist between leaders and followers, or particular situational contexts.

Given the usefulness of trust-warranting properties, perceptions of leader integrity may serve as a foundational source of information derived through social cues that increases follower confidence that the leader is worthy of trust. Moorman and Grover (2009) argued this point when they wrote that uncertainty management theory may explain why perceived integrity judgments may affect outcomes (van den Bos, Wilke, & Lind, 1998). Uncertainty management theory suggests that parties, when faced with increasing uncertainty, rely on proxy sources of information to increase their confidence. In testing this theory, van den Bos and colleagues (van den Bos, 2003; van den Bos & Lind, 2002; van den Bos & Miedema, 2000) showed that decision makers increasingly relied on perceptions of procedural justice to fill the void as uncertainty about decisions increased. Similarly, Moorman and Grover (2009, p. 103) posited that perceptions of integrity matter to followers because they offer “useful information that makes a follower’s decision to follow much less risky.”

The Information in Perceptions of Integrity

An important question then is, what information about leaders is really embedded in follower judgments of their integrity? To address this, we need to return to the definition of leader integrity. In their examination of definitions of leader integrity, Palanski and Yammarino (2007) examined eight perspectives on integrity and concluded that perceived integrity may be best described as a virtue that emerges from a judgment about the leader’s consistency between his or her words and deeds. Palanski and Yammarino rightfully acknowledge that this definition closely parallels Simons’s (1999) definition of behavioral integrity. So perceptions of integrity include the judgment that the leader’s words will predict leader deeds—at present and in the future.

However, in his definition of behavioral integrity, Simons (1999) was careful to say that behavioral integrity does not completely define the integrity construct. Simons is transparent in his effort to define behavioral integrity as a component of leader integrity that focuses only on the strength and reliability of the leader’s word and the consistency of his or her actions. To identify what else may be involved in a definition of leader integrity, Dunn (2009) identified integrity as a complex construct defined by different dimensions of coherence and consistency. He wrote,

Integrity requires coherence among a set of moral values, with this set of moral values having consistency with a set of social values, and that integrity further requires congruence between an agent’s behavior and this set of moral/social values over time and across social context(s). (p. 109)

While perceptions of word/deed consistency are embedded in this definition, integrity judgments may emerge from perceptions beyond this consistency alone.

In an effort to capture more completely how followers come to judge the integrity of leaders, Moorman, Darnold, Priesemuth and Dunn (2012) proposed and offered preliminary support for a definition and measurement approach for integrity that recognizes its multidimensional nature. Furthermore, Moorman et al. (2013) used this multidimensional perspective to develop and test a measure of perceived integrity that included moral behavior—a measure of perceptions of the degree to which the leader practices behaviors determined by a pluralistic approach to represent high morals—and behavioral integrity: Simons’s (2002) measure assessing word/deed consistency and promise keeping.¹ Their results supported the multidimensional model and showed that adding a dimension measuring moral behavior increased the variance explained by leader integrity in several measures of job attitudes and leader effectiveness. A similar approach was described by Tomlinson et al. (2014) when they differentiated between behavioral integrity and moral integrity, which they said “consists of both word-action consistency and value congruence” (p. 722).

Multidimensional Models of Trust

The study of perceptions of trust in the leader has also evolved to include more complex, multidimensional models. For example, McAllister (1995) argued that we can discover how trust affects an array of different job attitudes and behaviors by acknowledging that trust has both affective and cognitive bases. Affective trust is based on the nature and intensity of emotional ties between the trustor and trustee. McAllister argues that affect-based trust emerges from expressions of “genuine care and concern for the welfare” of the trustor and is influenced by feelings of empathy, affiliation, and shared regard (Schaubroeck, Lam, & Peng, 2011). Cognitive trust is instead based on the trustor’s knowledge of available evidence indicating the reliability, dependability, and competence of the trustee. Cognitive trust is affected by a trustor’s judgment of the trustee’s performance and whether that performance indicates the trustee’s capability to perform as promised.

Similarly, Gillespie (2012) employed Rousseau et al.’s (1998) definition of trust as accepting vulnerability because of positive expectations to argue that trust judgments are not unidimensional. Her research on trust identified two domains from which trust judgments emerge: reliance-based trust, which is the judgment to rely on “another’s skills, knowledge, judgments, or actions, including delegating or giving authority; and disclosure-based trust, which is the judgment to share work-related or personal information of a sensitive nature” (Gillespie, 2012, p. 183).

The value of modeling trust in multiple dimensions is that researchers can explore more nuanced ways in which trust may relate to other variables (Dirks & Ferrin, 2002). For example, Schaubroeck et al. (2011) defends the value of modeling trust this way because different trust dimensions are “associated with different psychological processes” (p. 864). Lam, Loi, and Leong (2013) used Gillespie’s (2003) measure of reliance-based trust and disclosure-based trust to examine how supervisory justice affects both trust in that supervisor and subordinate extra-role performance. While their results supported the relationships between justice, trust, and extra-role behavior in general, they were also able to show that only disclosure mediated the relationship between justice and extra-role behavior and that procedural justice only moderated the relationship between supervisory interactional justice and reliance. In sum, because they could model trust dimensionally, they were able to support more complex relationships involving trust.

Relationship Between Perceived Leader Integrity and Trust in the Leader

We will be proposing five hypotheses designed to focus on how perceived leader integrity may affect trust. First, and most generally, we will seek to replicate past work by identifying a relationship between integrity and trust, but we will hypothesize that adding a second dimension to our model of integrity will allow us to explain more variance in trust than would be found simply by modeling integrity as behavioral integrity. Past research on integrity and trust has measured integrity either as behavioral integrity alone (Simons et al., 2012) or as a single dimension measure of integrity (Mayer & Davis, 1999; Schoorman, Mayer, & Davis, 2007). However, as argued by Moorman et al. (2012), when assessing the integrity of leaders, followers tended to include judgments of both the leaders’ consistency and their moral character. Therefore, our first hypothesis is the following:

Hypothesis 1: The moral behavior dimension of perceived leader integrity will relate to trust in the leader and will explain significant variance beyond that explained by behavioral integrity.

Second, if we now conceptualize both trust and perceived leader integrity as two dimensions each, we can hypothesize differential relationships between the trust and perceived leader integrity dimensions. First, McAllister (1995) suggests that affect-based trust is the result of a person’s perception of “the motives for [another’s] behavior (p. 29). Motives that affect affective-based trust include attributed beliefs about the intrinsic virtue of relationships and faith in the inherent goodness of the other party. For these reasons, we believe that the affective-based trust will be most strongly related to the moral behavior dimension of perceived integrity. Moral behavior measures the follower’s assessment of whether the leader behaves in ways consistent with practices commonly viewed as moral (Burton, Dunn, & Goldsby, 2006). The moral behavior dimension offers followers the opportunity to assess whether their leaders consider the benefits of actions to society, protect others’ rights, accept and promote individual differences, practice fairness and caring, and seek to promote the development and improvement of society (Moorman et al., 2013). It is our contention that when followers view their leaders as moral actors, they will be more likely to report affective-based trust for them. While we are not prepared to hypothesize that the only relationship will be between moral behavior and affective trust, we can hypothesize that moral behavior will more strongly relate to affective trust than cognitive trust. Therefore, our second hypothesis is the following:

Hypothesis 2: Moral behavior will relate more positively to affective-based trust than to cognitive-based trust.

Third, as noted above, McAllister (1995) suggests that cognitive-based trust emerges from the trustor’s evaluation of the trustee’s reliability and dependability. The trustor does not assess the trustee’s motives like he or she would with affective-based trust but judges their behavior and how it indicates whether the trustee is dependable and will reliably continue to act as promised. Sitkin and Roth (1993) posit that judgments of trust or distrust could emerge from expectations about the leader’s task-specific reliability. Task-specific reliability represents an evaluation of specific instances where leaders show themselves to be reliable (e.g., by meeting an important deadline to complete promised work) or unreliable (e.g., by failing to fulfill such a promise). If these examples can be attributed to an individual’s typical behavior, Sitkin and Roth (1993) proposed that this would affect follower trust because such reliability would offer confidence that the leader is predictable and dependable.

Since the behavioral integrity dimension of leader integrity measures the leader’s word/deed consistency and whether the leader reliably acts in ways consistent with his or her values and professed statements, it follows that behavioral integrity may affect cognitive trust more than affective trust. Our third hypothesis is the following

Hypothesis 3: Behavioral integrity will relate more positively to cognitive-based trust than to affective-based trust.

Finally, modeling both integrity and trust as multiple dimensions also allows us to examine explanations for why different dimensions may be related. One potential mediator that has been shown to predict trust is value congruence. For example, Lewicki, McAllister, and Bies (1998) argue that trust relationships emerge from the degree to which both parties identify with each other’s values. Sitkin and Roth (1993) suggest value congruence drives trust because it illustrates to followers that the leaders will base future decisions and actions on the same moral values employed by the follower. If a follower strongly values independence and a leader shows support for similar values by granting followers opportunities to perform tasks autonomously, the follower would be more likely to trust that leader. On the other hand, a lack of value congruence would signal that the leader:

may be perceived as operating under values so different . . . that the [leader’s] underlying world view becomes suspect and the threat of future violations of expectations arises because the person is now seen as a cultural outsider—as one who “doesn’t think like us” and may, therefore, do the “unthinkable” (Sitkin & Roth, 1993, p. 371).

Similarly, Burke et al. (2007) support of a relationship between leader behavior and trust and offer a proposition suggesting that “the degree to which subordinates perceive value congruence with their leader will positively impact trust in leadership as the leader is seen as more like them” (p. 619).

However, what is interesting for our present research is we can identify theory that suggests that value congruence mediates the relationships between dimensions of integrity and dimensions of trust through a specific path between dimensions. For example, Gillespie and Mann’s (2004) theory on how trust develops through identification processes (Colquitt, LePine, Zapata, & Wild, 2011; McAllister, 1995) suggests that value congruence may mediate the relationship between moral behavior and affect-based trust. They argue that when a person perceives that another person or group adheres to the same principles and/or basic assumptions about what is right and wrong, he or she tends to identify with that person or group. Identification-based emotional bonds connect people and form a foundation for developing affect-based trust (Colquitt et al., 2011; McAllister, 1995). Furthermore, the relationship between moral behavior and affect-based trust may be based on an attraction explanation (Edwards & Cable, 2009). Attraction may emerge from the formation of emotional bonds stemming from perceptions of congruence, and these positive feelings toward another person can invoke a range of positive beliefs including trust (Jung & Avolio, 2000).

Therefore, we would suggest that value congruence may mediate the relationship between moral behavior and affective-based trust. Our fourth hypothesis is the following:

Hypothesis 4: Value congruence will mediate the relationship between moral behavior and affect-based trust.

Last, the way in which value congruence may affect the relationship between behavioral integrity and trust may take on a form quite different from the one proposed in Hypothesis 4 for moral behavior. Tomlinson et al. (2014) argued for and tested whether value congruence would moderate the relationship between behavioral integrity and OCB. Their argument was that value congruence is a linked construct with behavioral integrity that may represent how followers assess the moral character of their leaders. They suggest, similar to Moorman et al. (2013). that behavioral integrity alone may not fully capture how followers perceive integrity and that value congruence and behavioral integrity combine to form moral integrity. However, in their effort to explain why studies of the relationship between behavioral integrity and OCB found mixed results, they proposed that a reason could be that conditions of high-value congruence would “maximize the positive effects of integrity” (p. 725). They write, “High levels of both BI and values congruence . . . suggest a higher quality of social exchange . . . [and that] an actor’s word-action alignment is surely more valuable to an observer when value congruence is high” (p. 725). Furthermore, they argue that “social exchange theory would suggest that high levels of both BI and values congruence may indicate a closer emotional bond between the parties” (p. 725). Given that the relationship between trust and OCB has been well-established in the literature (see Moorman, Brower, & Grover, 2016, for a review), we can extend their logic to hypothesize that value congruence may moderate the relationship between behavioral integrity and both cognitive and affective-based trust. Our fifth hypothesis is the following

Hypothesis 5: Value congruence will moderate the relationship between behavioral integrity and both cognitive and affective-based trust.

Method

Description of Sample and Data Collection Method

We collected the data using Amazon’s Mechanical TurkPrime. The study was restricted to “workers” who had an IP address in the United States and who were classified by MTurk as “master’s-level” workers. According to MTurk, master’s-level workers are those who consistently complete projects/surveys with a high level of accuracy. Those master’s-level workers who chose to click onto the study read the following statement:

Please think of a particular leader you have followed recently. The experience of following this leader does not need to be good or bad, but it does need to be familiar enough so that you can answer questions about the leader and your reactions to that leader. Please answer the following questions about this leader using the answer scale below.

Participants then clicked on a link that connected them with the survey that was on Qualtrics.com.

A total of 280 people clicked on the survey link. The initial item asked them how well they knew the leader they were thinking about with respect to the above statement. Five of those participants replied, “I hardly know this leader at all,” and they were automatically routed to the end of the survey and were eliminated from the sample. Twenty-two individuals did not appropriately answer an attention check item and were also excluded from the sample. Finally, 2 of the individuals did not complete any of the items; thus the final sample size was 251. The average age of the respondents was 37.3 years (x̄ = 37.3, σ = 10.4), and the average years of work experience was 16.4 years (x̄ = 16.4, σ = 9.98). Fifty-three percent of the sample were male. All participants, except for one individual, were currently employed; 14.4% were working part-time.

Measures

Perceived Leader Integrity

To measure perceived leader integrity, we used two dimensions from the perceived leader integrity scale described in detail in Moorman et al. (2013). As noted above, the 2013 scale assesses perceived integrity based on follower beliefs about a leader’s moral behavior and a dimension assessing behavioral integrity (Simons, 2002). The moral behavior items reference behaviors such as acting to benefit the greater good, treating people fairly, protecting the rights of others, treating people with care and respect, serving to improve society, and being honest. The behavioral integrity items were taken from Simons’s (2002) eight-item measure assessing word/deed consistency and promise-keeping.

Value Congruence

To measure value congruence, we used Cable and DeRue’s (2002) three-item measure of the subjective fit between follower and leader values. The three items were as follows: “The things I value in life are very similar to the things my leader values”; “My personal values match my leader’s values”; and “My leader’s values provide a good fit with the things I value in life.”

Trust in the Leader

To measure trust in the leader, we used the Behavioral Trust Inventory (BTI) developed by Gillespie (2003) and reported in Gillespie (2012). We selected this scale for two reasons. First, it is one of only three measures of trust that were identified by McEvily and Tortoriello (2011) as appropriate for organizational settings while having the highest construct validity—the other two were measures by Currall and Judge (1995) and Mayer and Davis (1999). Second, of the three, it is the only measure that models trust in two dimensions consistent with McAllister’s (1995) affective and cognitive trust dimensions. The BTI includes five items measuring reliance-based trust, which Gillespie (2012) defines as “relying on another’s skills, knowledge, judgments or actions, including delegating and giving autonomy” (p. 183). Sample items include “How willing are you to rely on your leader’s task-related skills and abilities” and “How willing are you to depend on your leader to back you up in difficult situations.” We suggest that the reliance dimension corresponds to McAllister’s (1995) cognitive trust dimension because it assesses judgments of the leader’s competence and an identification of the “good reasons” for why someone should trust another.

The BTI also includes five items measuring disclosure-based trust, which Gillespie (2012) defines as “sharing work-related or personal information of a sensitive nature” (p. 183). Sample items include “How willing are you to confide in your leader about personal issues that are affecting you at work” and “How willing are you to share your personal feelings with your leader.” We suggest that the disclosure dimension corresponds to McAllister’s (1995) affective trust dimension because it assesses “the emotional bonds between individuals” (p. 26).

Finally, for our first hypothesis, we will first use the measure as an overall measure of trust by combining the two dimensions and then we will assess relationships with the individual dimensions.

Analyses

We will use SPSS and AMOS 20 to analyze our data. To evaluate our hypotheses, we will first use confirmatory factor analyses to assess the degree our measurement model fits our data. Then, to test Hypothesis 1, we will model trust as one factor and calculate both the variance in trust explained by behavioral integrity and the incremental improvement in variance explained offered by the addition of our second integrity dimension. A significant change in R² with the addition of the second integrity dimension will offer evidence of the value of measuring integrity with two dimensions. To test Hypotheses 2 and 3, we will model both integrity and trust in two dimensions and evaluate the significance of paths between each integrity and trust dimension. Likelihood ratio analyses, where the chi-square of a model with both paths estimated is compared with the chi-square of a model where both paths are constrained to be equal, will be used to determine if the relationship between moral behavior and disclosure is stronger than the relationship between moral behavior and reliance (Hypothesis 2) and whether the relationship between behavioral integrity and reliance is stronger than the relationship between behavioral integrity and disclosure (Hypothesis 3). To test Hypothesis 4, we will test the significance of the indirect effects via path analysis and bootstrapping (500 samples drawn). Indirect effects are interpreted as significant if a 95% confidence interval () does not include zero within its range. Finally, to test Hypothesis 5, we will use structural equation modeling to assess moderation by evaluating the significance of the paths from a cross-product term of behavioral integrity and value congruence to the two trust dimensions after accounting for the direct effects between those dimensions and behavioral integrity.

Results

Descriptive Statistics

The descriptive statistics, reliabilities, and intercorrelations among the study variables are reported in Table 1. The reliabilities for each of the scales were acceptable. Cronbach’s alpha was .94 for the six-item measure of moral behavior, .96 for the eight-item measure of behavioral integrity, .98 for the three-item measure of values congruence, .92 for the five-item measure of trust disclosure, .96 for the five-item measure of trust reliance, and .95 for the overall trust measure. Furthermore, the correlations among the variables were statistically significant (p < .001). These significant and positive correlations offer preliminary support for the hypothesized relationships between perceived integrity dimensions, value congruence, and trust in the leader.

Table 1.

Descriptive Statistics, Reliabilities, and Correlations.

	M	SD	1	2	3	4	5
1. Moral behavior (1-5)	3.99	0.828	(.94)
2. Behavioral integrity (1-5)	3.99	0.914	.84	(.96)
3. Values congruence (1-7)	4.98	1.43	.76	.75	(.98)
4. Disclosure trust (1-7)	4.86	1.43	.67	.64	.72	(.92)
5. Reliance trust (1-7)	5.70	1.31	.82	.81	.77	.67	(.96)

Note. Reliabilities on diagonal, all correlations are significant at p < .001.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis

As noted on Table 1, the measures of dimensions in our model are highly intercorrelated; thus we sought to determine the convergent and discriminant validity of our measures. First, we compared the fit of our hypothesized five-factor model with a more parsimonious three-factor model where integrity and trust dimensions were collapsed. The fit indices for the five-factor model were $χ_{311}^{2}$ = 584.7; root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) = .059; 90% CI [.052, .067]; comparative fit index (CFI) = .97; normed fit index (NFI) = .94. In comparison, the fit indices of the three-factor model consisting of one dimension of integrity, one dimension of trust, and value congruence were $χ_{318}^{2}$ = 1335.9; RMSEA = .113, 90% CI [.107, .119]; CFI = .89; NFI = .86. The change in $χ_{7}^{2}$ = 751.2, which is significant at p < .001. Second, as evidence of convergent validity the average variance explained for each of the five factors was above .50 and standardized factor loadings, reported in Table 2, indicate that all items were related to the appropriate latent factor (p < .001). Finally, the maximum shared variance of pairs of dimensions was greater than the average variance explained for each dimension (Fornell & Larcker, 1981).

Table 2.

Standardized Factor Loadings of Scales Used in This Study.

	Moral behavior	Behavioral integrity	Trust disclosure	Trust reliance	Value congruence
This leader acts to benefit greater good.	.90
This leader protects the rights of others.	.87
This leader treats people fairly.	.84
This leader treats people with care and respect.	.86
This leader serves to improve society.	.77
This leader is honest.	.86
This leader shows the same priorities as he or she describes.		.91
If this leader says he or she will do something, he or she will.		.91
This leader delivers on promises.		.90
This leader practices what he or she preaches.		.92
When this leader promises something, I can be certain it will happen.		.87
This leader conducts himself or herself by the same values he or she talks about.		.93
There is a match between the leader’s words and action.		.94
This leader does what he or she say he or she will do.		.91
Share your personal feelings with your leader			.88
Discuss work-related problems or difficulties with your leader that could potentially be used to disadvantage you.			.76
Confide in your leader about personal issues that are affecting your work.			.89
Discuss how you honestly feel about your work, even negative feelings and frustration.			.83
Share your personal beliefs with your leader.			.92
Rely on your leader’s task related skills and abilities.				.92
Depend on your leader to handle an important issue on your behalf.				.93
Rely on your leader to represent your work accurately to others.				.96
Depend on your leader to back you up in difficult situations.				.92
Rely on your leader’s work-related judgments.				.94
The things I value in life are very similar to the things my leader values.					.91
My personal values match my leader’s values.					.97
My leader’s values provide a good fit with thinks I value in life.					.95

Hypothesis Tests

Our first hypothesis served as a “proof of concept” test of whether there is value in modeling integrity as two dimensions. Our hypothesis is that past research that tested the relationship between trust and one dimension models of integrity may have mispresented the relationships because they measured integrity too narrowly. Our results support Hypothesis 1. First, consistent with past research, the standardized path from behavioral integrity to trust was .354, which is significant at p < .001, and the R² was .72. Additionally, the standardized path from moral behavior to trust was .558, which is also significant at p < .001. Adding this path also increased the R² increased to .79, resulting in a change in R² of .07. Furthermore, adding the path from moral behavior to trust resulted in a change in $χ_{1}^{2}$ = 41.6, p < .001. These results support the value of modeling integrity as a two-dimensional construct consisting of moral behavior and behavioral integrity.

To refine further our examination of how integrity may relate to trust, we modeled trust two dimensions—disclosure (which represents affective trust) and reliance (which represents cognitive trust). Hypothesis 2 suggested that the moral behavior dimension of perceived leader integrity would more strongly relate to disclosure than reliance. The standardized path estimate from moral behavior to disclosure was .557 (p < .001) and the standardized path estimate from moral behavior to reliance was .556 (p < .001). Using likelihood ratio analyses, the change in chi-square between the model where the paths from moral behavior to disclosure and reliance are estimated and the model where those paths are constrained was 1.4 (ns). These results do not support Hypothesis 2 because they suggest that moral behavior affects the two trust dimensions to similar degrees.

Hypothesis 3 suggests that the behavioral integrity dimension of perceived leader integrity would more strongly relate to reliance than disclosure. We again used likelihood ratio analysis to calculate the paths between behavioral integrity and both reliance and disclosure trust and to assess whether the path to reliance was greater than the path to disclosure. The standardized path estimate from behavioral integrity to reliance was .347 (p < .001), but the standardized path estimate from behavioral integrity to disclosure was .277 (ns). Furthermore, the change in chi-square between models where the two paths were freely estimated or constrained to be equal was 32.5, which is a significant change for 2 degrees of freedom. Taken together, these results support Hypothesis 3 that behavioral integrity relates to reliance more strongly that it relates to disclosure.

In Hypothesis 4, we hypothesized that value congruence would mediate the relationship between the moral behavior dimension of perceived leader integrity and disclosure (affect-based trust). To assess this hypothesis, we evaluated a model where the relationship between moral behavior and disclosure was modeled as both direct and indirect through value congruence. For the indirect relationship between moral behavior and disclosure, the standardized coefficient was .380, with a lower bound of .217 and an upper bound of .595. Additionally, the direct path from moral behavior to disclosure was positive and significant (γ = .330, p < .001). These results support Hypothesis 4 and suggest that values congruence partially mediates the relationship between moral behavior and disclosure.

Finally, Hypothesis 5 proposes an additional way in which value congruence may affect the relationship between integrity and trust. Hypothesis 5 proposes, following the work of Tomlinson et al. (2014), that values congruence will moderate the relationship between behavioral integrity and both dimensions of trust. The path between the cross-product term of behavioral integrity and value congruence and disclosure was not significant (γ = .057, ns), and the path from the cross-product term and reliance was also not significant (γ = .051, ns). Our results did not support Hypothesis 5.

Assessment of Common Method Variance

Since all the data were self-report and collected on one instrument, we sought to address the issue that our results were unduly affected by common method variance. To test for the influence of common method variance, we used a marker variable technique as described by Lindell and Brandt (2000). The marker variable that we used in this test was a self-rating of leadership effectiveness. Our results showed that all the correlations between study variables remained significant (p < .01), and the largest change in correlations was a decrease from .717 to .695 between value congruence and disclosure trust (Δr = .022, p = .624). We also included the self-rating of leadership in a regression model in which each trust variable was regressed on moral behavior, behavioral intentions, and value congruence and also in a regression model in which value congruence was regressed on moral behavior. In none of these models was the self-rating of leadership significantly related to the dependent variable, while behavioral integrity and moral behavior remained statistically significant (p < .01) with reliance-based trust and moral behavior remained significant (p < .01) with disclosure-based trust. Although common method variance cannot be ruled out entirely, we believe that these results provide ample evidence that the relationships were not based exclusively on common method variance.

Discussion

The intent of this study was to use multidimensional measures of perceived leader integrity and trust to show different mechanisms for how integrity may relate to trust. First, we can support the added value of modeling and measuring perceived leader integrity with dimensions that assess both behavioral integrity and moral behavior (Moorman et al., 2012; Tomlinson et al., 2014). Our support for Hypothesis 1 suggests that our additional integrity dimension, moral behavior, explained additional variance in a general measure of trust. Furthermore, we found support for Hypothesis 3 that behavioral integrity is related to cognitive-based trust more so than affective-based trust. Taken together, these results support the idea that measuring integrity with behavioral integrity alone would not represent a complete way to examine the effects of integrity on outcomes. If we measured integrity only with behavioral integrity, we would explain less variance in trust (as evidenced by support for Hypothesis 1). We acknowledge that measuring only the relationship between behavioral integrity and trust resulted in a relatively large percentage of variance explained (R² = .72) and that adding the second dimension offered a modest increase in R² of .07. However, adding the second dimension of integrity also allowed us to identify the relationship between integrity and affective-based trust (as evidenced by the failure of behavioral integrity to affect disclosure in Hypothesis 3).

Second, our results for Hypotheses 2 and 4 support a second mechanism through which integrity may affect trust. Past research showing how behavioral integrity affects trust was interpreted to indicate a reliability explanation for the relationship (Simons et al., 2012; Tomlinson et al., 2014). However, our results suggest a second channel where perceptions of moral behavior may directly affect emotional connections that drive affective-based trust. Because both moral behavior and behavioral integrity relate to trust, our results suggest that followers use judgments of each to develop their trust in the leader. Perceptions of reliability alone would not be enough because followers lack information about whether the leader’s actions would emerge from an acceptable moral framework. Perceptions of morality alone may not be enough to warrant trust because followers lack information about whether leader proposals would be enacted. Our results suggest that followers employ judgements about both character and reliability to infer integrity and that these attributions of integrity may affect follower trust via different paths.

Furthermore, our results for Hypothesis 4 that value congruence partially mediates the relationship between moral behavior and trust identify how value congruence may connect integrity and trust. Our results suggest that followers who judge their leaders as behaving morally also come to believe that their leaders’ values are congruent with their own. This judgment of value congruence, in turn, may increase the confidence that followers would have in their decisions to submit to leaders and follow their directions. For trust judgments based on the characteristics of the trustee, research finds consistently that we tend to trust people similar to ourselves because such familiarity reduces our uncertainty over what the other may do (Creed & Miles, 1996). Conversely, if the trustee differs greatly from the trustor, the trustor may not have any basis to judge how the trustee may act in novel situations.

These results support the more general idea that integrity conveys rich information about leader character and consistency. Our results suggest that followers may value their judgments of a leader’s integrity because such judgments contain significant information about the link between what they currently know about a leader and his or her plans and the likely performance and outcome of those plans (Moorman & Grover, 2009). When judging leaders to have high integrity, followers are likely to believe that (a) there is great consistency between what leaders say now and what they will subsequently do (the reliability path) and (b) that what the leader will do and ask followers to do will be consistent with moral values (the leader character path). In his uncertainty management theory, van den Bos and colleagues (van den Bos, 2003; van den Bos & Lind, 2002; van den Bos & Miedema, 2000) argued that as uncertainty increases, subjects may look for proxy sources of information about the fairness of the processes used in making decisions. Moorman and Grover (2009) suggested that the perceptions of integrity may serve as proxies for information about the future that is inherently lacking as followers make their decision to follow. The value of integrity judgments is that they are information-rich and thus serve as important guideposts for followers who are seeking to understand what may happen when they decide to follow a leader.

However, we were not able to find support for Hypotheses 2 and 5. Hypothesis 2 tested whether the moral behavior dimension would more strongly relate to affect-based trust more so than cognitive-based trust. Instead of this result, we found that moral behavior was related similarly to both affective-based and cognitive-based trust. These results suggest that the distinction between affective and cognitive-based trust may not be great enough to separate unique mechanisms for how follower judgments of the moral behavior of leaders affects their trust.

We also acknowledge that our sample may be such that they did not answer each question in the survey with enough deliberation to uncover what may be a nuanced result. Using MTurk to develop the sample offers important access to a working population, but it may suffer from some inflation bias. We tried to minimize this by offering a higher “salary” to respondents, by including restrictions on who could answer the survey questions, and by using a marker variable method to assess the effects of common method variance. However, we found that our variables were all highly correlated, and our scales had very high alphas, which suggests that the respondents may not have identified the differences among the variables studied as well as we would have liked. With this in mind, our result showing that behavioral integrity was not related to affective-based trust was an important and seemingly robust finding.

Finally, we were unable to support Tomlinson et al.’s (2014) evidence that value congruence may moderate the relationship between behavioral integrity and trust. We could not replicate their finding of a moderated relationship that suggests that when value congruence was high, perceived behavioral integrity would relate more strongly to OCB performance. Because trust is so strongly related to OCB, we would expect to find the same moderating relationship. However, we were unable to replicate it.

Beside methodological or sample issues that may suppress a significant moderation (i.e., multicollinearity), one explanation for this may be that when moral behavior is measured alongside behavioral integrity, value congruence may be better modeled as a result of integrity than an moderator. Tomlinson et al. (2014) first suggested this in the introduction to their study when they said that moral integrity consisted of both behavioral integrity and value congruence. However, their decision to model value congruence as a moderator of the behavioral integrity to trust relationship may have imposed a different role for value congruence than their definition of moral integrity suggested. In our model, we were able to separate our moral behavior dimension from value congruence and support this distinction using confirmatory factor analysis. In post hoc analyses, we found support for value congruence mediating the relationship between behavioral integrity and both dimensions of trust. These post hoc results suggest that it may be more fruitful to model value congruence as a mediator of the relationship between behavioral integrity and trust rather than as a moderator. It is clear that we need additional research to sort out how value congruence may affect the relationship between behavioral integrity and trust.

Limitations

While our results are consistent with extant theories on the relationships between leader integrity and trust, our study is not without limitation. First, although we attempted to address an effect of common method bias by assessing the contributions of a theoretically unrelated marker variable, we cannot rule out its potential influence entirely. Second, we acknowledge that this study asserts causal inferences about how perceived leader integrity may affect follower trust; however, experimentation where the variables are manipulated and their effects compared is needed to offer the necessary support for these inferences.

Another limitation of this study pertains to the conceptual overlap between trust and leadership. In their meta-analysis of trust in leadership, Dirks and Ferrin (2002) noted in their review of the literature that the distinction between trust and transformational leadership was unclear. Furthermore, in their meta-analysis of 106 independent samples with 27,103 individuals, they found that trust in the leader and transformational leadership was highly correlated (r = .73). Although we did not seek to measure transformational leadership in the present study, this same concern could explain the relationship we found between perceived leader integrity and trust. However, can offer two defenses: First, we were able use the Lindell and Brandt (2000) marker variable method to test for the extent that common method variance might have explained the results. Our tests suggest that common method variance has not significantly affected our results. Second, though the moral behavior dimension was highly related to both dimensions of trust, behavioral integrity was only related to cognitive-based trust, which is consistent with theory. Therefore, we do not believe the potential overlap between trust and leadership effectiveness substantially undermines our findings.

Our study also includes many of the shortcomings common in the value congruence literature and consequently leaves many questions unaddressed. First, our approach to measuring value congruence causes a loss of information. The direct measurement approach we employed does not allow us to determine which values are most meaningful in influencing trust. Furthermore, this measurement approach does not allow us to investigate which moral behaviors might influence specific dimensions of value congruence. Accordingly, this study is limited in its ability to investigate the why questions surrounding value congruence. Second, we did not measure the leadership context. Accordingly, our study cannot address when value congruence is related to moral behavior or trust in the leader. Finally, our quantitative and cross-sectional measurement of study variables does not allow us to investigate how follower perceptions of value congruence form and change. Future research should seek to address the limitations.

Finally, our study was admittedly leader-centric. That is, our study focused on the leader without taking into consideration the bidirectional nature of the leader–follower relationship. Dirks and Ferrin (2002) proposed a framework for trust by dividing it into two perspectives. One perspective was characterized as relationship-based, while the other perspective was characterized as character-based. The relationship-based conceptualization is based on social exchange, in which the relationship between the follower and leader is based on the quality of the relationship, more than simply the economic contract. On the other hand, the character-based conceptualization is related to the perception, by the follower, of the leader’s character. Both views are undoubtedly influenced by the interactions between the follower and leader, and as noted by Dirks and Ferrin (2002), they may affect each other. Thus, our view of trust did not include this bidirectional relationship between the leader and follower as it pertains to trust development and that should be addressed in future studies in this area.

Conclusion

As an aspect of leader character, leader integrity has been afforded an exalted position in our models of effective leadership. For example, Palanski and Yammarino (2009) suggest that the opinion that “integrity is important for effective leadership is oft-asserted, perhaps to the point that it is almost an axiom in leadership studies” (p. 405). The utility of leader integrity could be based, in part, on its relationship to trust. Martin (1999) suggests that trust and leadership are inseparable for our understanding of great leadership, that is, “One means little without the other” (Bligh & Kohles, 2013, p. 105). Therefore, it is important to understand the distinct mechanisms that may link perceived integrity to trust. This present study shows how using a multidimensional measure of perceived leader integrity helps us understand that integrity relates to trust in different ways depending on the dimensions of integrity and trust assessed. Our conclusion is that follower trust is affected by perceptions of integrity indicated by the moral character of the leader and the leader’s word–deed consistency. Furthermore, the relationship between behavioral integrity and trust is best understood as a relationship with cognitive-based trust, while the relationship between moral behavior and trust also implies a relationship with both affective-based trust and cognitive-based trust. Finally, the positive relationship between moral behavior and trust is mediated by increased value congruence. Taken together, these results reinforce (a) the value of considering the complex ways followers may arrive at integrity perceptions and (b) the centrality of integrity in determining whether leaders can gain the trust of their followers.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

Author Biographies

Robert H. Moorman, PhD, is the Frank S. Holt, Jr. Professor of Business Leadership in the Martha and Spencer Love School of Business, Elon University. He received his PhD from Indiana University, Bloomington. Dr. Moorman’s research examines topics in leadership, workplace justice, and organizational citizenship behavior.

Gerald L. Blakely, PhD, is an associate professor of management at West Virginia University, and received his PhD from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Dr. Blakely specializes in performance appraisal, employee motivation, and worker cooperation.

Todd C. Darnold, PhD, is the Charles “Mike” Harper Endowed Chair in Business Leadership in the Heider College of Business, Creighton University. Dr. Darnold received his PhD from the University of Iowa and has published articles on leadership and human resourcement management topics.

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