Determinants of Quality of Work Life: The Mediating Role of Climate of Trust

This study investigates the influence of employee empowerment, organizational justice, transformational leadership, and ICT support on employees' quality of work life with the mediation effect of the climate of trust in the hotel industry of Bangladesh. The Socio-technical Systems Theory and the Social Exchange Theory were employed to support the research framework. This research conducted a cross-sectional study, applying the systematic random sampling technique using 323 questionnaires from the full-time operational staff of three-star hotels in Bangladesh. The data were assessed using the Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) approach. The results of the study supported nine hypotheses out of thirteen. Based on the empirical evidence, the results supported the direct relationships between employee
empowerment, transformational leadership, ICT support, and quality of work life. Results also supported the relationships between employee empowerment, transformational leadership, ICT support, and climate of trust. However, the results did not support the relationships of organisational justice with the quality of work life and the climate of trust. Concerning the mediation effect, the
climate of trust mediated the relationships of employee empowerment and ICT support with quality of work life. However, climate of trust did not mediate the relationships of organisational justice and transformational leadership with quality of work life. This study contributes immensely to the existing literature about how organizational practices enrich and maintain the quality of work life of employees and how the climate of trust mediates organizational practices and quality of work life relationships, particularly in the context of developing countries, such as Bangladesh, where there are few similar studies. The findings suggest that management and policymakers should enrich hotel employees’ quality of work life by empowering them, performing transformational leadership, and providing ICT-enabled facilities. Ultimately, the deployment of these functions nurtures mutual trust among the members.