KNUST Research Week and Scientific Conference: Empowering Researchers to Achieve Impactful Outcomes

Employee loyalty is vital for organizational success, influencing retention, productivity, and long-term growth. However, loyalty is increasingly threatened by decline in trust in management, changing workforce expectations, and high turnover. It is therefore not surprising that, issues relating to trust and loyalty and other employee and organizational outcomes needs have been widely studied and the roles of leadership style in shaping this relationship remains underexplored in developing contexts such as Ghana.
Thus, this study examines the effect of trust in management on employee loyalty, with authentic leadership as a moderating factor. Specifically, the study examines the effect of trust in management on employee loyalty; examines the effect of authentic leadership on employee loyalty; and investigate the moderating role of authentic leadership on the relationship between trust in management and employee loyalty. Guided by social `exchange theory, the study employed quantitative design. Data was collected from 215 bank employees, through structured questionnaires and analysed using SPSS and Hayes Process Macro Model 1 to determine the direct effect of trust in management on employee loyalty and which extent to authentic leadership strengthens or weakens this relationship.
The study’s findings revealed that trust in management has a positive impact on employee loyalty, and authentic leadership has positive and significant relationship with employee loyalty and authentic leadership moderate the relationship between trust in management and employee loyalty. The study highlights the need for management, leaders, and policymakers to foster trust-building practices while integrating authentic leadership approaches to enhance employee commitment and retention.