Credibility (Trustworthiness) — Newell & Goldsmith

1. Abstract

The Credibility (Trustworthiness) Subscale, developed by Stephen J. Newell and Ronald E. Goldsmith (2001), is an essential psychometric instrument operationalized to quantify consumer and stakeholder perceptions regarding an organization’s honesty, integrity, and moral reliability in its external communications. Originating as one of the two core dimensions of the multidimensional Corporate Credibility Scale—alongside Corporate Expertise—the Trustworthiness dimension captures the affective and ethical foundations of perceived institutional character. The scale comprises four self-report items evaluated on a seven-point Likert-type or semantic continuum ranging from 1 (“Strongly Disagree”) to 7 (“Strongly Agree”). Extensive empirical evaluations across diverse consumer samples demonstrate that the subscale possesses superior psychometric properties, characterized by high internal consistency (Cronbach’s α typically ranging between .88 and .93), robust convergent validity with corporate reputation indices, and robust discriminant validity distinguishing moral trustworthiness from technical capability. Confirmatory factor analytic (CFA) models consistently validate the unidimensionality of this subscale as a primary order factor nested under the broader construct of corporate credibility. The instrument provides scholars and organizational practitioners with a parsimonious, rigorous, and theoretically validated measurement tool capable of diagnosing stakeholder skepticism, tracking corporate social responsibility (CSR) outcomes, predicting brand attitudes, and testing complex structural models across consumer psychology, corporate communications, and behavioral marketing research.

2. Keywords

Corporate Credibility, Trustworthiness, Newell and Goldsmith, Source Credibility, Perceived Honesty, Consumer Skepticism, Organizational Integrity, Psychometric Validation, Scale Development, Corporate Reputation, Confirmatory Factor Analysis, Consumer Psychology

3. Authors

The scale was developed and psychometrically validated by:

• Stephen J. Newell, Ph.D. — Professor of Marketing, Haworth College of Business, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Michigan, United States. Dr. Newell’s scholarship focuses on corporate reputation, integrated marketing communications, organizational credibility, and sales management.
• Ronald E. Goldsmith, Ph.D. — Professor Emeritus of Marketing, College of Business, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida, United States. Dr. Goldsmith is an internationally recognized expert in consumer behavior, scale construction, consumer innovativeness, and the psychometric measurement of subjective brand perceptions.

Correspondence regarding the original scale development was directed via the Department of Marketing, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI 49008, USA, and the Department of Marketing, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306, USA.

4. Purpose

In modern market environments saturated with commercial messaging, public relations campaigns, and strategic brand positioning, consumers are continuously exposed to corporate claims. The primary purpose of the Credibility (Trustworthiness) Subscale is to measure the extent to which an organization is perceived as intrinsically truthful, dependable, and benevolent in the statements, claims, and promises it makes to external stakeholders. Newell and Goldsmith (2001) recognized that while traditional source credibility literature heavily emphasized individual endorsers (e.g., celebrity spokespersons, expert witnesses), modern consumer decision-making frequently hinges on the credibility of the corporate entity behind the brand or message.

From an applied perspective, the scale serves critical diagnostic and predictive roles across commercial and non-commercial environments:

• Assessment of Stakeholder Skepticism: It allows researchers to quantify consumer cynicism and distrust toward commercial advertising, green marketing initiatives, and sustainability communications.
• Corporate Crisis Management and Recovery: In the wake of ethical scandals, environmental violations, or product recalls, organizations utilize the scale to benchmark longitudinal recovery of institutional trust.
• Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Auditing: The instrument facilitates empirical testing of whether philanthropic investments translate into genuine perceived benevolence or are perceived as manipulative greenwashing.
• Predictive Modeling of Consumer Actions: In academic modeling, the trustworthiness score serves as a powerful antecedent predicting attitude toward the ad ($A_{ad}$), attitude toward the brand ($A_b$), purchase intentions, positive word-of-mouth (WOM), and brand advocacy.

Theoretically, the scale addresses the necessity of isolating moral integrity from operational capability. While an organization may possess state-of-the-art technological resources (expertise), it may simultaneously be perceived as deceitful or exploitative (lack of trustworthiness). By isolating the trustworthiness dimension, researchers can conduct granular analyses of institutional perception and avoid confounding distinct perceptual vectors.

5. Psychological Construct

The psychological construct assessed by this instrument is Corporate Trustworthiness, defined as the degree of confidence a perceiver maintains that an organization possesses ethical principles, demonstrates integrity, and produces accurate, truthful communication without intending to mislead or exploit stakeholders. Within psychological and psychometric frameworks, trustworthiness represents an evaluative, affective-cognitive attribution made by an observer regarding an institutional target’s underlying motives, character, and reliability.

Unlike personal trust in interpersonal relationships, corporate trustworthiness involves abstract, distributed institutional cognition. Consumers rarely interact with the organization as a monolithic human agent; rather, they construct mental representations of corporate character through repeated exposures to advertising, press coverage, customer service experiences, and executive statements. The construct encapsulates three interrelated conceptual facets:

• Perceived Truthfulness: The cognitive assessment that claims made by the corporation correspond directly to objective reality and verifiable performance. When an enterprise claims its product is environmentally benign or ethically sourced, perceived truthfulness reflects the subjective certainty that these claims are free from deceit.
• Perceived Honesty and Moral Character: The moral dimension of corporate character reflecting fairness, transparency, and adherence to societal ethical norms. An honest firm is viewed as internally guided by moral standards rather than mere legal compliance or cynical opportunism.
• Perceived Benevolence and Non-Exploitation: The attribution that the organization cares about the welfare of its consumers and stakeholders and will not intentionally exploit information asymmetries for predatory short-term profit.

The Trustworthiness subscale stands in explicit contrast to its sister dimension, Corporate Expertise. While expertise answers the question, “Does the company possess the knowledge, skill, and competence to fulfill its mission?”, trustworthiness answers the essential moral question, “Does the company possess the willingness and ethical integrity to tell the truth and treat consumers fairly?” These two dimensions together constitute the global construct of corporate credibility, but each retains distinct nomological networks and behavioral implications.

6. Theoretical Framework

The conceptual genesis of the Newell and Goldsmith (2001) scale is rooted in classic Source Credibility Theory, initially formulated within social psychology by Carl Hovland, Irving Janis, and Harold Kelley (1953) during the seminal Yale Communication and Persuasion Program. Hovland and his colleagues posited that the effectiveness of persuasive communication depends significantly on how the recipient perceives the communicator along two primary axes: expertness and trustworthiness.

For several decades, this theoretical paradigm was applied almost exclusively to human communicators—such as political speakers, doctors, journalists, and celebrity endorsers (e.g., Ohanian, 1990). Newell and Goldsmith extended this paradigm by demonstrating that corporate entities function as persuasive communication sources in their own right. Drawing on the anthropomorphism of brand identity and institutional sociology, consumers project human-like psychological attributes onto corporations, evaluating them through cognitive heuristics analogous to those used in interpersonal impression formation.

Furthermore, the scale is anchored in Attribution Theory (Fritz Heider, 1958; Harold Kelley, 1973). Attribution theory suggests that individuals continually seek to infer the underlying causes and dispositions governing an actor’s behavior. When confronted with corporate marketing claims, consumers engage in causal attribution: Is the company promoting this message because its product is genuinely superior (internal, truthful attribution), or is it manufacturing claims purely to inflate sales and deceive the public (external, manipulative attribution)? A high score on corporate trustworthiness indicates that the consumer attributes the organization’s claims to genuine moral character and factual validity.

Finally, Signaling Theory (Michael Spence, 1973; Kirmani & Rao, 2000) provides a complementary economic-psychological framework. In markets characterized by high information asymmetry, consumers cannot directly verify product quality prior to consumption. Corporate trustworthiness functions as an intangible perceptual asset that reduces perceived transaction risk and psychological vulnerability, validating the company’s signals as credible indicators of unobservable quality.

7. Validity

The psychometric validity of the Newell and Goldsmith (2001) Trustworthiness subscale has been extensively established through rigorous methodological procedures across multiple developmental phases and independent replications:

• Content and Face Validity: Initial item generation emerged from an exhaustive review of literature spanning marketing, speech communication, and social psychology. An initial pool of candidate items was screened by expert panels consisting of marketing academicians and psychometricians. Items displaying semantic ambiguity, redundancy, or multidimensional cross-loadings were systematically eliminated, ensuring that the remaining four items exhibited unambiguous face validity for perceived corporate honesty and truthfulness.
• Construct and Convergent Validity: In the original validation studies (Newell & Goldsmith, 2001), the trustworthiness items demonstrated high standardized factor loadings (> .75) on their designated latent construct within Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA). Average Variance Extracted (AVE) values consistently exceeded the recommended .50 threshold (often exceeding .65), establishing that a substantial majority of variance in the observed indicators is captured by the underlying latent construct rather than measurement error.
• Discriminant Validity: Discriminant validity was empirically substantiated using the Fornell-Larcker criterion. The square root of the AVE for the Trustworthiness dimension consistently exceeded the inter-factor correlation between Trustworthiness and Expertise ($r \approx .50 – .65$). Furthermore, chi-square difference tests comparing an unconstrained two-factor model (Expertise and Trustworthiness free to correlate) against a constrained one-factor model (correlation fixed at 1.0) yielded statistically significant differences ($\Delta\chi^2, p < .001$), demonstrating that Trustworthiness is empirically distinct from technical competence.
• Predictive and Nomological Validity: Nomological validity has been corroborated across numerous structural equation models. The subscale exhibits significant positive relationships with attitude toward the brand ($A_b$), corporate reputation, brand equity, and purchase intention, while exhibiting strong negative correlations with consumer skepticism, ad reactance, and boycott propensities. In comparative experimental designs, advertisements attributed to corporations scoring high on this subscale produced significantly greater message acceptance and lower counterarguing.

8. Reliability

The Trustworthiness subscale displays exceptional internal consistency and measurement stability across diverse demographic strata, cultural contexts, and experimental paradigms:

• Internal Consistency (Cronbach’s α): In the initial scale development studies by Newell and Goldsmith (2001), the four-item trustworthiness dimension yielded Cronbach’s alpha coefficients of .88 in Study 1 (exploratory sample) and .91 in Study 2 (confirmatory validation sample). Subsequent replications in advertising and public relations literature (e.g., Goldsmith, Lafferty, & Newell, 2000; Lafferty, Goldsmith, & Newell, 2002) have reported alpha values consistently ranging between .89 and .93.
• Composite Reliability (CR): Structural equation modeling assessments reveal composite reliability values well above the conventional threshold of .70, routinely surpassing .90, verifying that the indicator variables reliably represent the latent construct without excessive measurement error.
• Test-Retest Stability: In longitudinal and test-retest experimental conditions without intervening crisis stimuli, the subscale demonstrates strong temporal stability across two- to four-week intervals ($r > .80$), confirming that it taps into enduring cognitive representations of corporate character rather than transient emotional states.
• Item-Total Correlations: Corrected item-to-total correlations for all four items consistently exceed .70, with no single item’s deletion leading to an improvement in the overall reliability coefficient.

9. Factor Analysis

The structural dimensionality of the Credibility scale was rigorously established through exploratory and confirmatory factor analytic procedures:

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

During preliminary scale purification, an initial pool of corporate credibility items was submitted to Principal Axis Factoring (PAF) and Principal Component Analysis (PCA) with both orthogonal (Varimax) and oblique (Promax) rotations. Eigenvalues-greater-than-one criteria and Cattell’s scree test uniformly resolved into an unmistakable two-factor solution accounting for the vast majority of total variance (> 65%). The four trustworthiness items loaded cleanly on a single factor (loadings ranging from .78 to .89) with minimal cross-loadings (< .20) on the expertise factor.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

To confirm the latent architecture, Newell and Goldsmith (2001) conducted maximum likelihood CFA using LISREL/AMOS software packages on an independent validation sample ($N = 345$). The hypothesized two-factor oblique measurement model exhibited exceptional goodness-of-fit indices:

• $\chi^2 / df$ ratio < 2.5
• Goodness-of-Fit Index (GFI) > .95
• Comparative Fit Index (CFI) = .98
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI / NNFI) = .97
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) = .048 (with 90% CI [.031, .066])
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR) = .032

All standardized factor loadings ($lambda$) for the four trustworthiness items were statistically significant ($p < .001$), with magnitude estimates exceeding .75:

• Item 1 (Trust): $lambda pprox .84$
• Item 2 (Truthful claims): $lambda pprox .86$
• Item 3 (Honesty): $lambda pprox .89$
• Item 4 (Belief in statements [reverse coded]): $lambda pprox .78$

Subsequent multi-group CFA studies across international contexts have confirmed measurement invariance (configural, metric, and scalar invariance), proving that the scale functions consistently across diverse cultural populations.

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

The formal operational details of the Trustworthiness subscale are structured as follows:

• Test Type: Standardized self-report psychometric rating scale; evaluative corporate character assessment tool.
• Administration Format: Paper-and-pencil, computer-assisted web interviewing (CAWI), or embedded survey module. Can be administered individually or as part of a larger brand perception battery.
• Item Count: Exactly 4 items (constituting the Trustworthiness subscale of the 8-item Corporate Credibility Scale).
• Target Stimulus: An identified corporation, enterprise, brand entity, or organizational spokesperson representing the corporate body (e.g., “[Company Name]”).
• Response Format: Seven-point Likert-type scale typically structured as:
  • 1 = Strongly Disagree
  • 2 = Disagree
  • 3 = Somewhat Disagree
  • 4 = Neither Agree nor Disagree (Neutral)
  • 5 = Somewhat Agree
  • 6 = Agree
  • 7 = Strongly Agree

  (Alternative presentations utilize a 7-point semantic differential continuum between opposing anchors).

• Scoring Protocol:
  • Item 4 is framed negatively and must be reverse-scored prior to composite calculation ($X_{new} = 8 – X_{original}$).
  • The subscale score is computed as the arithmetic mean of all four items (ranging from 1.00 to 7.00) or as a summed composite score (ranging from 4 to 28).
  • Higher scores reflect greater perceived corporate trustworthiness, honesty, and moral dependability. Scores below 4.00 signal prevailing consumer skepticism or moral distrust.

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Trustworthiness subscale was published in 2001 in the peer-reviewed article “The development of a scale to measure perceived corporate credibility” within the Journal of Business Research (Elsevier Science Inc.).

• Copyright Status: The original article and its publication layout are copyrighted by Elsevier Science Inc. However, under customary academic and scientific conventions, the scale items themselves are widely utilized by independent researchers and graduate scholars without royalty fees for non-commercial academic research, pedagogical purposes, and thesis investigations.
• Commercial Applications: Commercial enterprises, market research firms, or brand consultancies wishing to integrate the proprietary measurement tool into commercial client diagnostic batteries should verify compliance with fair-use doctrines or request licensing clearance via Elsevier’s RightsLink permissions portal.
• Citation Requirement: Any scholarly or practical application of the scale requires formal academic attribution to Newell and Goldsmith (2001).

12. References

The theoretical and empirical literature supporting this psychometric instrument includes:

• Fornell, C., & Larcker, D. F. (1981). Evaluating structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error. Journal of Marketing Research, 18(1), 39–50. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224378101800104
• Goldsmith, R. E., Lafferty, B. A., & Newell, S. J. (2000). The impact of corporate credibility and celebrity credibility on consumer reaction to advertisements and brands. Journal of Advertising, 29(3), 43–54. https://doi.org/10.1080/00913367.2000.10673616
• Heider, F. (1958). The psychology of interpersonal relations. John Wiley & Sons. https://doi.org/10.1037/10628-000
• Hovland, C. I., Janis, I. L., & Kelley, H. H. (1953). Communication and persuasion: Psychological studies of opinion change. Yale University Press.
• Kelley, H. H. (1973). The processes of causal attribution. American Psychologist, 28(2), 107–128. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0034225
• Kirmani, A., & Rao, A. R. (2000). No pain, no gain: A critical review of the literature on signaling unobservable product quality. Journal of Marketing, 64(2), 66–79. https://doi.org/10.1509/jmkg.64.2.66.18000
• Lafferty, B. A., Goldsmith, R. E., & Newell, S. J. (2002). The dual credibility model: The influence of corporate and endorser credibility on attitudes and purchase intentions. Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, 10(3), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1080/10696679.2002.11501916
• Newell, S. J., & Goldsmith, R. E. (2001). The development of a scale to measure perceived corporate credibility. Journal of Business Research, 52(3), 235–247. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0148-2963(99)00104-6
• Ohanian, R. (1990). Construction and validation of a scale to measure celebrity endorsers’ perceived expertise, trustworthiness, and attractiveness. Journal of Advertising, 19(3), 39–52. https://doi.org/10.1080/00913367.1990.10673191
• Spence, M. (1973). Job market signaling. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 87(3), 355–374. https://doi.org/10.2307/1882010

13. Items of the Scale