Trust Repair by Public Kindergartens: Mediating Role of Positive Emotions: A case of kindergartens in Anhui Province, China

Abstract

The trust of the public for public organizations is greatly damaged because of the repeated occurrence of violations of trust events, which has an outcome in the form of serious trust deficit. This paper examines the post-trust of parents in kindergarten that extends apology with an internal or external attribution after a competence or integrity-based trust violation. We asked about 855 parents to respond to a scenario in which they read about violation of competence with apology internal or about violation of integrity with apology external. After reading a scenario based hypothetical situation they respond to a questionnaire. Each participant was presented with one of the scenarios. The results revealed a significant interaction whereby parent’s leads to post trust more successfully when kindergarten apologized with an internal attribution in matters of violation concerned matters of competence but apologized with an external attribution when the trust violation concerned matters of integrity. Positive emotions mediate the relationship between apology with internal attribution in matters of competence violation or apology with external attribution in matters of integrity violation and post trust.

Keywords: Trust Repair, Trust Violation, Competence, Integrity, Apology, Attribution, Kindergarten, Emotions.