Paper on felt trust published in the Journal of Organizational Behavior

Interpersonal trust is associated with a range of adaptive outcomes, including knowledge sharing. However, to date, our knowledge of antecedents and consequences of employees feeling trusted by supervisors in organizations remains limited. On the basis of a multisource, multiwave field study among 956 employees from 5 Norwegian organizations, we examined the predictive roles of perceived mastery climate and employee felt trust for employees' knowledge sharing. Drawing on the achievement goal theory, we develop and test a model to demonstrate that when employees perceive a mastery climate, they are more likely to feel trusted by their supervisors at both the individual and group levels. Moreover, the relationship between employees' perceptions of a mastery climate and supervisor-rated knowledge sharing is mediated by perceptions of being trusted by the supervisor. Theoretical contributions and practical implications of our findings are discussed.

- Christina G.L. Nerstad, Rosalind Searle, Matej Černe, Anders Dysvik, Miha Škerlavaj, Ronny Scherer