Employee trust repair after organizational change

Abstract

PurposeThis study examines the trust-repair practices after organizational change.Design/methodology/approachPrevious research on this topic is limited, so an abductive qualitative research approach was adopted. The data were collected from key informants through focus group discussions and interviews.FindingsBeyond previous research findings, this study identified that employee trust can be repaired after benevolence-based trust violations by enforcing ethical behavior and fostering managers' emotional intelligence and after competence-based violations by fostering the sense-making process and by involving third parties in trust recovery. In addition, transparent information sharing and strong management actions predict positive trust outcomes in a change context.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper makes three key contributions to the literature on organizational trust by (1) identifying trust violations after organizational change, (2) proposing a process model on trust repair and (3) extending understanding of trust repair practices by revealing new elements.Practical implicationsThis study provides practical information from a real work context and can improve managers' understanding of active trust-repair practices.Originality/valueThis paper outlines active trust-repair practices in an organizational change context and expands the current theory by presenting novel insights into organizational trust repair. In addition, this paper contributes to the trust-repair literature by proposing promising avenues for future trust repair research.