The mediating role of organizational trust in the effect of ethical climate on organizational citizenship behavior

Organizational citizenship behavior, ethical climate and organizational trust are among the concepts that are given importance in the organizational behavior literature. When the organizational behavior literature is examined in terms of doctoral theses, the number of studies on ethical climate is less than other concepts in the literature. In addition, there is no study in which the concepts of ethical climate, organizational citizenship behavior and organizational trust are examined together. In this context, the definitions, scopes, subdimensions and results of the basic concepts that are the subject of the research are discussed by making use of the sources in the literature. Organizational citizenship behavior is the behavior that the employees do voluntarily, which is not included in their job descriptions, outside of their roles and duties, and they do not expect any reward in return. Ethical climate refers to a working environment in which the employees of the organization act in accordance with the ethical principles of the organization and behave in accordance with the ethical rules. Organizational trust is an expectation and interpretation process in which mutual risks are perceived, which is affected by various factors, especially the current situation in the mutual relationship, the characteristics of the trustee and the trusted, which are formed among the employees in the organization, among themselves, with their managers and with the top management of the organization. The main purpose of this study is to examine the mediating role of organizational trust in the effect of ethical climate on organizational citizenship behavior. The sample of the research consists of 371 public officials working in various public institutions, who are in the city center of Kastamonu and fill out the questionnaire on a voluntary basis. Within the scope of the research, the survey method was used as a data collection tool. Some of the questionnaire forms were applied to the volunteer participants, who were randomly and impartially selected, in print and face to face, and some of them were applied via Google Forms on the internet. Reliability and validity analyzes of the obtained data were made with IBM SPSS Statistics 28 and Lisrel 8.51 statistical analysis programs; descriptive statistics, frequency analysis, mean and standard deviation values were calculated. In the scope of the research; The scale developed by Victor and Cullen (1988) as the Ethical Climate Scale; As the Organizational Citizenship Scale, the scale used by Niehoff and Moorman (1993) in their work (developed by Podsakoff and MacKenzie, 1990); The scale developed by Nyhan and Marlowe (1997) was used as the Organizational Trust Scale. Questionnaire; demographic characteristics, ethical climate scale (26 items), organizational citizenship behavior scale (20 items) and organizational trust scale (12 items) in a total of 4 sections and 58 items (questions). As a result of the statistical analyzes, it was seen that the mediation effect was significant and organizational trust had a partial mediating role in the effect of ethical climate on organizational citizenship behavior. There is a positive and moderate relationship between ethical climate and organizational citizenship behavior; positive and moderate between ethical climate and organizational trust; It was determined that there is a positive and moderate relationship between organizational trust and organizational citizenship behavior. It has been determined that the effects of ethical climate on "organizational citizenship behavior" and "organizational trust" and organizational trust on "organizational citizenship behavior" are significant. With the application made within the scope of the research, it is aimed to contribute to the field and to guide the research to other future researches. The variables examined in the study can be compared in different sectors, in different provinces, at different times.