The Effect of Organizational Trust in Municipalities and Municipal Companies on Organizational Commitment

Organizational trust and commitment are still getting a lot of attention because in order to keep up with the experienced changes and transformations, organizations today have to retain qualified employees to continue their operations effectively. This issue is important for the municipalities and the municipal companies considering that municipal companies own high amount of the municipal budget and numbers of personnel especially in the metropolitan municipalities. Trusting an organization provides positive thoughts, feelings and behaviors for the employees while distrusting creates negative thoughts, feelings and behaviors so that their commitment levels might have been affected badly. For the employees, knowing that they are in an environment of trust with their colleagues, managers and organizations will enable them to internalize the vision, mission, goals and objectives of the organization and increase their commitment to the organization. However, in the opposite case, organizations may be faced with consequences such as leaving the organization and absenteeism that reduce productivity. Organizations that provide organizational trust will not only get the maximum return from the knowledge and skills of their employees, but will also be more advantageous in creating organizational commitment (Demirel, 2008: 180). In this study, firstly, the dimensions of organizational trust, secondly, commitment and then the results of the research were discussed.


INTRODUCTION
Organizational trust and commitment are still getting a lot of attention because in order to keep up with the experienced changes and transformations, organizations today have to retain qualified employees to continue their operations effectively. This issue is important for the municipalities and the municipal companies considering that municipal companies own high amount of the municipal budget and numbers of personnel especially in the metropolitan municipalities. Trusting an organization provides positive thoughts, feelings and behaviors for the employees while distrusting creates negative thoughts, feelings and behaviors so that their commitment levels might have been affected badly. For the employees, knowing that they are in an environment of trust with their colleagues, managers and organizations will enable them to internalize the vision, mission, goals and objectives of the organization and increase their commitment to the organization. However, in the opposite case, organizations may be faced with consequences such as leaving the organization and absenteeism that reduce productivity. Organizations that provide organizational trust will not only get the maximum return from the knowledge and skills of their employees, but will also be more advantageous in creating organizational commitment (Demirel, 2008: 180). In this study, firstly, the dimensions of organizational trust, secondly, commitment and then the results of the research were discussed.

TRUST IN ORGANIZATION
Lexical meaning of trust is believing and feeling of attachment without hesitation, fear, and doubt (TDK). The morally legitimate behavior of an individual, group or organization is expected from other individuals, groups or organizations (Tuysuz, 2017: 51). This concept also includes expressions of vulnerability, uncertainty and risk. Therefore, they can remain vulnerable in their behaviors against the expectations of the trusting parties without needing for the control (Mayer et al., 1995: 712). Nowadays, our country as the whole world have experienced technological economical, sociological, demographical and ecological changes differentiating citizen-state, employee-employer relations forcing the not only private but also public sector to change itself in order to increase its productivity. Especially with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic that may be caused due to various reasons listed above, the issue of trust has come to the fore again in private and public sector. Many employees have forced to leave for short-time working allowance/pays or leave without pay in private and public sectors and in municipalities and especially in municipal firms. Therefore they started to distrust their management, and then their managers, and finally their colleagues. This environment of distrust confronts management, managers and employees and negatively affects performance of survivors and the all employees as a whole (İslamoğlu et al., 2007: 21). So, in this context, it is important to study the issue of trust.
Organizational trust can be classified as trust in organization, trust in supervisor and trust in co-worker. Trust in organization expresses the belief that corporate leaders or managers will remain keeping their promises within an organization regarding employee's expectations on corporate relations and behaviors (İslamoğlu et al., 2007: 25). It is involved in the relations within the entire organization, horizontally and vertically (Demircan and Ceylan, 2003: 142). Employees within an organization with a punitive style of management have a sense of losing their jobs. There is an organizational climate in which ideas cannot be freely expressed. If there is an excessive resistance to organizational change efforts and a bureaucratic organizational structure is observed in this environment and it is understood that the trust level in this organization is low (İslamoğlu et al., 2007: 27). At this point, the issue of organizational commitment comes to the fore and it is important for organizations to retain its human resources that they may lose in this environment. In some researches, a relationship between trust in supervisor and trust in organization, a relationship between organizational commitment and trust in organization, and a negative relationship with the turnover rate were found (Tan and Tan, 2000: 255).
Another type of organizational trust is trust in supervisor. Managers act as a bridge between the organization and the employees, and convey the goals, objectives, expectations and demands of the organization to the employees. Since the employees are aware of this situation, they identify the behavior of the managers with the organization and therefore an organizational perception is formed. However, in some cases, employees trust their managers but not the organization (Tan and Tan, 2000: 253). When there is a short-time working allowance/pays or leave without pay in the municipalities and municipal firms, this situation affects all of the employees working in these organizations. At this point, in order to provide environment of trust, managers should be honest, open, consistent, respectful and fair towards employees (İslamoğlu et al., 2007: 31).
Trust in co-worker can be identified as the belief that employees develop against their colleagues at the same level that they will not abuse each other, hide information from each other and harm each other physically or affectively (İslamoğlu et al., 2007: 37). In an environment where employees trust each other, it has been determined in many studies that there are positive returns to the organization on the issues of individual and organizational effectiveness, and organizational development. As a result of the trust in co-worker and trust in supervisor, the intention to leave decreases, the team work becomes stronger, the job engagement and the organizational commitment increases (İslamoğlu et al., 2007: 38).

ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT
When the literature on organizational commitment is examined, it is seen that there is no consensus yet in regarding to the definition of the concept. It is seen that the concept has been considered by many authors with different variables and therefore different definitions have emerged (Leong et al., 1996: 1345-1363, Allen and Meyer, 1996: 252-276, İnce and Gül, 2005: 1-103, Meyer et al., 1993. In general, in these definitions, it is stated that the employees should have a strong desire for membership of the organization by adopting the goals and values of the organization, ensuring the identity integration with the organization and to reach them putting more effort than expected (Bakan, 2011: 2). When the organization's goals and objectives are compatible with the goals and objectives of the employees, the commitment rate will increase. In addition to these definitions discussed in the literature, one issue that researchers agree is that this concept is multidimensional. Early studies on the subject state that the concept of commitment consists of two dimensions: affective, attitudinal and behavioral commitment (Mowday et al., 1982: 26). In the following studies, the dimensions of commitment which were accepted in the literature mostly on the concept of commitment as affective, continuance and normative commitment determined by Allen and Meyer came to the forefront and accepted (Allen and Meyer, 1996: 252-276). These dimensions complement organizational commitment as a whole. However, in terms of commitment, every employee can have different degrees in different dimensions. While some of the employees have a high level of affective commitment, others may have a high level of continuance or normative commitment. Therefore, employees' desire to stay in the organization may differ from each other in terms of their commitment levels or dimensions.
Having employees with a high level of organizational commitment can be considered as one of the main factors for organizations to reach their goals and objectives (Denizli, 2018: 62). Compared to those have a low level of organizational commitment, these employees have a lower rate of absenteeism, quitting their jobs, and being late to work, thus providing competitive advantage to the organization (Uygur, 2009: 14). However, one point is that arises in here is employees only perform what they expect from and may have a high level of absenteeism rate and a low level of motivation rate in continuance commitment dimension (Çetin, 2004: 62). However, it is seen that employees with a high level of affective commitment contribute to the organization in the opposite way. Therefore, it can be thought that employees with a high level of affective commitment contribute to organizations more than others. Organizational commitment has a strong relationship especially with perceived management support and empowerment (Zeffane and Al Zarooni, 2008: 196). At the same time, the success of managers depends on the degree of employee commitment in achieving the organization's goals and objectives (Hill andHuq, 2004: 1030). Therefore, organizational commitment has a connection with trust in organization. Organizational commitment is connected to the several demographic variables such as age, gender, marital status, experience level etc. of the employees. In a research conducted on municipalities, it was found that when the experience level increased, employees' commitment increased simultaneously (Kaplan and Güven 2017: 50).
The first dimension of organizational commitment is the affective commitment. It can be defined as employees identifying themselves with the organization to establish an affective bond to internalize and accept the goals and values of the organization, making a significant effort for it and continuing membership in that organization while have a strong desire to continue working in there (Swailes, 2002: 159). Unlike behavioral commitment, sharing the goals and values of the organization for the employees has different meanings than the cost of leaving the organization in the dimension of affective commitment. In behavioral commitment employees establish a relationship based on mutual interests with the organization and demonstrate certain behaviors in order to stay in the organization, but in affective commitment, these behaviors are exhibited as a result of an attitude. Therefore, affective commitment can be seen as a precursor of a certain behavior. Some employees associate their identities with the organization and develop an affective or psychological commitment to the employees. This type of employees, who are generally preferred by managers, make more efforts to achieve goals beyond their formal job descriptions. Affective commitment which positively affects job performance also increases organizational citizenship behavior more than other commitment dimensions (Sabuncuoğlu and Tüz, 2013: 71). As a result of various studies, it is revealed that the affective commitment is related to positive experiences such as autonomy, justice and organizational support and so that employees would be more productive than before (Wasti, 2009: 18).
The second dimension of organizational commitment, continuance commitment, is a cost-oriented commitment, and it is the situation of commitment taking into account the costs that employees will experience as a result of leaving the organization (Swailes, 2002: 158). In this dimension of commitment, the idea employees have that they will lose any financial, psychological or physical opportunity when they leave the organization increases the continuance commitment. They realize that they will lose them if they leave by evaluating the investments they have made for the organization and agree to give up these investments. Therefore, if the loss is bigger than they bear, they may remain to work there. In addition, if the employees have the opportunity to find jobs alternatively outside the organization, their continuance commitment level will be low. In a study conducted on the issue, 80% of municipal employees do not plan to leave the municipality because of the low job opportunities they can find outside of the municipality (Yılmazer, 2012: 329). In another study, this rate was found almost 50% (Kaplan and Güven 2017: 49). As can be seen from the results of these researches, it is obvious that the economic conditions affect this situation. However, such situations will not have an effect on continuance commitment depending on whether the employees are aware of these situations or not (Meyer and Allen, 1997: 58). Thinking that older employees invest more in their organization than younger employees can be considered as a factor that prevents them from leaving the organization. Employees who are in this situation do not go beyond their job descriptions in order not to lose their current job, they only perform job-related duties and they perform very little for unrelated ones (Uygur, 2009: 19). The strong fit between organizational objectives and values and employees' objectives and values causes employees to perceive continuing to work in that organization as a necessity.
In normative commitment which is the third dimension of organizational commitment employees perceive staying in the organization as a sense of duty, a moral imperative or a relationship based on self-interest as in continuance commitment. Employees are influenced by the factors such as family, society etc. and develop a belief that they have to be loyal to their organizations (Uygur, 2009: 20). Therefore, it is possible to say that society has an impact on this behavior. Employees with stronger normative commitment find it morally appropriate to stay in the organization (Meyer and Allen, 1991: 77). This kind of belief and moral issues affects the employees' intention to stay in the organization and this is also perceived as an obligation (Martín, 2008: 591). In addition to the social impact, organizational investments in employees also affects the employees' stay in organizations and as a result of them, commitment to the organization is seen as a sense of gratitude and as a moral responsibility. Studies have found a positive relationship between continuance and normative commitment but not between affective and continuance commitment (Allen and Meyer, 1990: 9). In a study conducted between public and private sector public relations titled employees, it was found that the normative commitment level of public sector employees was lower than private sector counterparts (Duğan, 2017: 368).

METHOD
The method of the study can be expressed as a "descriptive research" which is used to define the relationships between variables and to make predictions between them. In this context, the sample of this research is the 272 municipal employees who work in different type of local government institutions such as İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality, district municipalities and municipal corporations in İstanbul province. Convenience sampling method was used for the study with a questionnaire consisting three parts. First part is the organizational trust scale developed by İslamoğlu et al. (2007) and later designed by Tuysuz (2017). The scale measuring three dimensions of trust; trust in organization, trust in supervisor and trust in co-worker has 29 items designed according to the 6-point Likert-type. The second part of the scale is also 6-point Likert-type and it has developed by Meyer et al., and translated to Turkish language by Denizli (2018) measuring commitment by three components; affective, continuance and normative commitment has 18 items. SPSS 20 data analysis program was used for the analyzing data. According to factor analyses, KMOs of the sampling are, respectively, 0,945 and 0,905 indicates that sample of the research is adequate for the study. Cronbach alphas for the trust in organization, trust in supervisor and trust in co-worker are, respectively, 0,910, 0,945, and 0,977 and for the affective, the continuance, and the normative are 0,931, 0,729 and 0,888 respectively indicate that they have sufficient reliability. The main purpose of the study is to determine whether organizational trust has an effect on commitment. In this direction, the effects of organizational trust dimensions on affective, continuance and normative commitment, which are dimensions of organizational commitment, were examined separately. The research question of the study can be expressed as determining whether these variables differ according to some demographic specifications of employees such as working status, age, gender, marital status, education level and experience level. Therefore, the hypotheses and the research questions of the study are listed below: H1: Organizational trust significantly effects affective commitment.
H3: Organizational trust significantly effects normative commitment.

Strategic Public Management Journal, Volume 6, Issue12, December 2020
Research Questions: What is the correlation level between these variables? Are there any organizational trust or organizational commitment perception differences between employees according to their working status, age, gender, marital status, education level and experience level? As can be seen in Table 1, the rate of civil servants in the study is close to 50% as expected. A substantial proportion of the participants in the study consists of municipal company workers 35,3%. When we look at the age rates, it is seen that the majority are between the ages of 31-40. It can be stated that municipalities have employees from the younger generation relatively. It is observed that the majority of the participants are males 64%. It is seen that the majority of the participants are married 75%. Considering the education level, it can be stated that the municipalities consist of employees with undergraduate and graduate level almost 80%. Finally, it is seen that over 10 years experienced municipal employees is 68%. This is also one of an expected results, considering that most of the employees are civil servants in the municipalities in Turkey. Considering the variables examined in the study, the means of the responses of 272 employees; the mean of trust in organization is 35,5, trust in supervisor is 41,9, the trust in co-worker is 38,1 and the affective commitment is 24,6, the continuance commitment is 24,7, the normative commitment is 23. According to the data, it has been determined that the highest mean in the dimension of trust in organization is the trust in supervisor and lowest is the trust in organization. In the context of the organizational commitment, continuance commitment is the highest, normative commitment is the lowest. Therefore, they trust in their managers but not their organizations. They stay in their organizations as a necessity. This result is consistent with the study of (Yılmazer, 2012: 329) and (Kaplan and Güven 2017: 49) even if the mean is so close to the mean of affective commitment. Correlation analysis was conducted to determine the relationships between variables within the scope of the research in terms of our research questions. According to the analysis, there is a significant positive relationship between the dimensions of trust and organizational commitment. The most prominent among them are between trust in supervisor and trust in organization (r=0,712) and continuance and normative commitment (r=0,851) which is consistent with Meyer et al. (1990). There is no significant relationship between affective commitment and trust in organization and trust in supervisor but there is a weak, positive relationship with trust in co-worker (r=0.169).

The Effect of Organizational Trust in Municipalities and Municipal Companies on Organizational Commitment Murat TÜYSÜZ -Mahmut DOĞAN -Mustafa TÜYSÜZ
The main purpose of the study is to determine the effect of organizational trust on organizational commitment. According to the multiple linear regression analysis, the effect of three dimensions of organizational trust on commitment was examined. The coefficients and regression analysis of the variables are presented in the Table 4 show that adjusted R 2 is 0,546 indicating that the model 1 explained almost 55% of the total variance and the model is significant (F=109,443, p<0,05). When we look at the coefficients result, affective commitment influenced by trust in organization (β=0,583, p<0,05) and trust in supervisor (β=0,198, p<0,05). However, trust in co-worker did not significantly affect the affective commitment (β=0,017, p>0,05). Besides that Durbin-Watson (DW) statistic was 1.543 in the model 1. Therefore, it confirms that there is no autocorrelation. H1 can be partially accepted as affective commitment is influenced by trust in organization and trust in supervisor. These results are consistent with the study of Demirel (2008) who did his study in private sector. He found that organizational trust is effective on the affective commitment of employees in tourism sector (Demirel, 2008: 179). Model 2 examines the effect of organizational trust on continuance commitment. As seen in the table, the model 2 is significant (F=2,686, p<0,05) but explained only 18% percent of the total variance. Of the dimensions of organizational trust, only trust in supervisor effects continuance commitment (β=0,190, p<0,05) and there is no autocorrelation (DW=1,861). Subsequently, H2 also can be partially accepted as continuance commitment is influenced by only trust in supervisor. In the last model, model 3, the effect of organizational trust on normative commitment was examined. As a result of regression analysis, the model 3 is significant (F=87,765, p<0,05) and the model explained 49% of the total variance. Normative commitment was affected by the trust in organization (β=0,459, p<0,05) and the trust in supervisor (β=0,216, p<0,05) and there is no autocorrelation (DW=1,712). Consequently, H3 also can be partially accepted as normative commitment is influenced by trust in organization and trust in supervisor.

CONCLUSION
The issue of the trust in organization and organizational commitment has been addressed by many researchers for years in the national and the international literature with different variables. As a result of the rapid changes and transformations experienced today, the issue becomes more critical both for the private sector companies, municipalities and municipal companies as public institutions. Providing effective, efficient and uninterrupted services to their citizens at the local level is particularly important for the elected municipalities. In order to achieve this, the issue of organizational trust and commitment comes to the fore in today's environment. It is thought that this study will shed light on these issues. In this study conducted in municipalities and their affiliates, a strong relationship was found between trust in supervisor and trust in organization but it was found that employees did not trust the organization as much as they trusted their managers and colleagues. In addition, although the mean of affective commitment is very close to continuance commitment, there was no significant relationship between trust in organization and affective commitment. In the study, we also found a strong relationship between continuance commitment and the trust in organization. In this context, it can be said that employees are more likely to continue to stay in their organizations in terms of continuance commitment. It can be thought of as a necessity, a thought related to not being able to find a job outside. It can be stated that this situation is not a much desired situation for organizations. Because staying in the organization as a necessity may cause a poor performance. In the study, it was determined that organizational trust affects organizational commitment with some dimensions. It has been determined that trust in organization and supervisor effect affective commitment. Therefore, in addition to the other factors, employees should trust in their organizations and managers in order to identify with the organization's goals and objectives to continue to stay in their organizations and to show a superior performance. In the study, it was also determined that among the dimensions of organizational trust, only trust in supervisor affects the continuance commitment. Therefore, it can be said that employees' continuing to stay in the organization in order not to lose their financial gains generally depends on their managers' attitudes towards employees. Another result revealed from the study is that trust in organization and supervisor affect normative commitment. So, it can be said that the thought of staying in an organization as a result of the strong relations of the employees with their organizations and managers is a moral obligation. Thus among other factors, organizations are losing their talented employees because of their managers' attitude of developing positive and fair relations with their employees. In the study, it was also examined whether there is a difference in terms of organizational trust and commitment according to some demographic characteristics of the employees. According to the analyses, a significant difference was found between males and females in all variables except for the continuance commitment. It has been determined that female employees trust their organizations, colleagues and managers more than males. In addition to this, it was found that the mean of affective and normative commitment of female employees was higher than males. According to the analysis made according to marital status, it was found that the mean of affective commitment of married employees is higher than singles. Another result obtained from the study is that there is a significant difference between employees with high school and lower education level and all other education levels on the affective commitment. Here, the highest mean of the affective commitment belongs to this group, and the lowest belongs to associate degree graduates. The situation in the normative commitment again belongs to the high school and lower education level but the lowest belongs to the graduate level employees. It can be stated that employees have graduate degree do not feel staying in the organization as a social and a moral obligation more than others. It can be said that as the education level increases, this group thinks that they can find jobs more easily than others. In addition, when the age groups were examined, it was found that the mean of affective and normative commitment of older employees was higher than younger ones. It has also been determined that employees with more than 10 years of experience have higher levels of normative commitment than those with 5-10 years of experience. Considering that the older employees may have accepted and internalized the vision, mission and values of the organization more than others when organization have invested in them more. Hence the older employees may find staying in the organization morally and affectively more appropriate than younger ones. However, it is an important fact that should not be forgotten here is the opportunity to find a job decreases as the age increases. Consistent with the previous studies, it appears as a logical result, considering that the affective and normative commitment level is high in this age group where the average experience level is the highest. Also, in the study, a significant difference was found between public workers and civil servants in terms of continuance commitment. In terms of the trust in organization, significant differences were found between the employees. It is seen that employees with more than 10 years of experience trust the organization more than others. Besides, it is observed that civil servants trust the organization more than municipal company workers. This can be explained by the job security that civil servants have more than municipal company workers. Trust in organization also varies according to the employees' education level. It has been found that employees with the lowest level of education trust their organizations, managers and colleagues more than others. It has been determined that employees with more than 10 years of experience are the group that trusts their managers more than others. Consequently, one of the limitations of the study can be expressed as the use of convenience sampling method in the research. Although the results cannot be generalized, they are important in terms of creating a prediction for the future studies on the subject.