Sociology

Organizational trustworthiness can be defined as a tool for the evaluation of the management behavior in the modern-day work environment. Trust worthy behavior has been identified as key to increased employee effort and initiatives in the organization. Trustworthiness can be said to be that behavior which is in support of the expectation that an actor will respond in reciprocity in regard to the interest of the party. The concept of regarding people as the most important asset of an organization has widely been accepted but very few people live towards the same.  In most cases, managers would call for greater effort and enthusiasm from their employees by heightening the involvement of the employees but doing very little in changing the organizational practices in order to reflect same commitment. According to Hodson, organizations just like social communities can either be anomic, alienating and disorganized or normative, organized, integrated, and produce meaning and satisfaction. Organizational trustworthiness is generally based on employment practices and the managerial competency models. Any efforts to test such efforts has been faced with many challenges in the past due to the difficulty of gathering data related to managerial and employee behaviors in a given organization. Randy Hodson set out to conduct a comprehensive analysis of data collected from 204 organizational ethnographies in order to address the challenges in testing the two models. The analysis did verify the existence of management competence and employee practices as two distinct factors.

Critical Summary of Hodsons Analysis
It has been argued that both the human relations practices that are supportive and competencies in the management are essential for the realization of productivity in the organization. Both the respect for employees and managerial competence are the two functions that are much needed in the contemporary high performance organizations. Appropriate managerial behavior in the place of work therefore represents two realms that are different but somehow related. The management responsibilities are specified in the workplace norms in order to maintain an orderly and efficient production system which allows the workforce to meet its job demands. On the other hand, the same workplace norms incorporate treating the employees with some dignity and the recognition of their social and material interests. When these norms are not observed in an organization, this may result in purposelessness and aloofness from work.

The organization has the duty to establish supportive employment practices which involves having respect for the rights and interests of the employees. This may include but not limited to the provision of a stable and secure employment which offers job security to employees, payment that is adequate and with the ensuing benefits, and offering the opportunities in training and advancement of the employees careers. Such practices are relevant towards the achievement of trustworthy in an organization. Another duty of the organization is to provide management competence in order to attain effectiveness and coherence in production organization. This aspect involves maintaining of the facilities and technology, together with the coordination and the integration of the activities that are related to productivity. Ineffective arrangements of production can be manifested in the purchase of faulty components, failing to properly schedule activities in an orderly manner, communication failure, and the inability to exercise sound leadership. Competence has been identified as a key component of trustworthiness which is an important aspect for a positive organizational culture.

The impacts of the organizational trustworthiness are far reaching ranging from enhanced citizenship of the employees, and increasing cooperation with minimized conflicts at the workplace. Employee citizenship behavior has been identified as positive activities by the employees geared towards improving productivity and cohesion at then workplace which are usually beyond the organizational requirement. Hodson claims that, the organizational trustworthiness also limits conflict and infighting among co-workers through the identification and promotion of super-ordinate goals. To him one can not expect to find cooperative and supportive co-worker relationship in an organization characterized by unethical management behavior coupled by untrustworthy. Conflicts may also arise between the management and the employees thereby eroding the sense of the shared purpose between the workforce and the managers. Reciprocity that is provided by the organizational trustworthiness can reduce the employeemanager conflicts with great significance.

Strength and Weaknesses
The approach used by Hodson to check on how management competence and employment practices draws its strength from the fact that adequate numbers of samples were used which included different organization ethnographies. The sampling and methodology used in data collection and analysis were also commendable. This led to development of new insights that coherence in the organization and managerial competences are the main determinants of key aspects of employee behavior. The major weakness of this approach is that despite consuming too much time and resources, the outcome of the analysis mainly confirmed the already existing tenets about organizational trustworthiness. Very little was discovered to add to what had been discovered in the previous undertakings and this can be seen as both time and resource wastage.

Conclusion
Despite the critique laid against Hodson, he has helped clear any doubts that existed about the employment practices as a chief foundation for employee citizenship. His comprehensive analysis has reiterated that management competence and employee practices are responsible for the growth of the organizational trustworthiness. The implications of Hodsons paper to organizational theory would therefore be to stress the importance of effectiveness in the organizations. This will mean that high performance in the organization will be a reflection of how the employee practices that enhance employee citizenship, limiting conflicts are implemented in the organization. It will also be a reflection of effective managerial competence being administered in the organization.