The impact of trust in AI on career sustainability: The role of employee–AI collaboration and protean career orientation

Abstract

Drawing upon person–environment fit theory and the importance of employees' career sustainability in Artificial Intelligence (AI) integration within organizations, we propose a moderated mediation model to test how and when AI trust is linked to employees' career sustainability. This mechanism posits employee–AI collaboration as a mediator and employees' protean career orientation as a moderator. Two studies were conducted to test the hypothesized model. In Study 1, a 5-item measure was developed to evaluate employee–AI collaboration and tested with a sample of employees working with AI technology. In Study 2, multisource and two-wave data were collected to analyze 447 employee–supervisor dyads. The results indicated that AI trust was positively related to employee-rated well-being and supervisor-rated employee productivity via employee–AI collaboration. In addition, the relationship between AI trust and employee–AI collaboration was stronger for employees with high protean career orientation. We concluded with a discussion of the theoretical contributions and practical implications.