A trust‐based approach to promote employees' openness to organizational change in Turkey

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to explore the role of managerial communication, employee participation and trust in one's supervisor in enhancing openness to organizational change of Turkish employees. Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected via a structured questionnaire. A total of 878 employees from public organizations in Turkey participated in the study. The basic postulate of this study is that trust in one's supervisor will surpass the effects of managerial communication (i.e. task communication, career communication and communication responsiveness) and employee participation as they jointly influence employees' openness to organizational change. Findings – The results indicate that trust in one's supervisor fully mediates the relationship between managerial communication and openness to change, whereas it partially mediated the relationship between employee participation and openness to change of Turkish employees. Practical implications – This paper demonstrates that using a trust‐based approach during change initiatives could be very effective for organizations in collectivist cultures like Turkey. Originality/value – This study contributes to the literature by investigating the combined effects of managerial communication, employee participation and openness to organizational change on employees' openness to organizational change in a different cultural context. Managerial and theoretical implications of research findings are also discussed.