Trust in employees from managers can backfire

Kong, D. T., Cooper, C. D., Peng, J., Crossley, C. D., & Lassu, R. A. (2025). An OBSE‐contingent work engagement model of felt trust: Implications for task performance and work‐to‐home conflict. Journal of Management Studies.

Abstract: Employees respond differently to felt trust from their supervisor. We propose and test an organization-based self-esteem (OBSE)-contingent work engagement model of felt trust that predicts task performance and work-to-home conflict. We argue that employees use OBSE as a lens for interpreting felt trust, which has implications for their work engagement and subsequent task performance and work-to-home conflict. In Study 1 (a multi-wave survey in the USA), we found that employees who had higher (lower) OBSE responded more positively (negatively) to felt trust with higher (lower) work engagement. In Study 2 (a cross-lagged survey in China), we replicated the findings of Study 1 and further showed that felt trust had a positive (negative) relationship with task performance and a negative (positive) relationship with work-to-home conflict via work engagement among higher- (lower-) OBSE employees. Our model shifts the thinking on felt trust and has implications for felt trust theory and managerial practice.

URL: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/joms.13210