Graduation Year

2026

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree

D.B.A.

Degree Granting Department

Business

Major Professor

Dirk Libaers, Ph.D.

Co-Major Professor

Christos Pantzalis, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Daniel Acheampong, DBA

Committee Member

Ehsan Sheybani, Ph.D.

Keywords

Benevolence, Competence, Governance, Integrity, Political

Abstract

This dissertation examines the relationships between participatory governance strategies and multidimensional citizen trust in municipal contexts. Although local governments have implemented deliberative forums, digital platforms and hybrid participation approaches to restore declining public confidence, inconsistencies between theoretical predictions and empirical outcomes have raised questions about participatory governance effectiveness. Motivated by this gap between deliberative democracy theory's optimistic predictions and limited empirical support, the study investigates the psychological, political and contextual mechanisms that shape trust formation through civic engagement. Drawing on an integrated framework combining organizational trust theory and deliberative democracy frameworks, the research conceptualizes trust as a multidimensional construct involving competence, benevolence and integrity components while examining transparency as a potential mediating mechanism and demographic factors as moderating influences.

Quantitative methods are employed, including hierarchical regression analysis supplemented by confirmatory factor analysis and bootstrap mediation analysis, to examine direct, indirect and conditional relationships within the model. Through survey data collected from Wayne County, Michigan residents, the findings indicate that deliberative forums produce limited trust-building effects while digital and hybrid strategies exhibit unexpected negative outcomes. Two paradoxes emerge: an intensity paradox wherein meeting attendance increases satisfaction while subjective involvement decreases it and a quality paradox wherein high-quality participation simultaneously decreases beliefs that government will help while increasing beliefs that government acts in citizens' interests. Political identity effects substantially exceed participation quality effects, indicating that partisan identity dominates experiential learning in shaping trust evaluations. Transparency does not mediate participation-trust relationships and hypothesized demographic moderations prove non-significant. Critical limitations include extremely small sample sizes for digital and hybrid participation categories, severely constraining statistical power and coefficient stability.

The study contributes to participatory governance research by challenging deliberative democracy theory's core predictions about deliberative forum superiority, extending organizational trust theory by validating multidimensional trust structures in governmental contexts and reconceptualizing participation's educative function as producing informed skepticism rather than naive approval. Practical implications emphasize pursuing participatory governance for intrinsic democratic values rather than instrumental trust-building objectives, exercising caution when implementing digital strategies in cybersecurity-vulnerable contexts and recognizing that participation alone cannot address underlying governance performance deficits without accompanying substantive improvements in service delivery and fiscal health.

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