ISSN 1671-3710
CN 11-4766/R
主办:中国科学院心理研究所
出版:科学出版社

心理科学进展 ›› 2022, Vol. 30 ›› Issue (7): 1448-1462.doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1042.2022.01448

• 研究构想 • 上一篇    下一篇

员工被上司信任感的形成机制

朱宁奕1, 江宁2, 刘艳2()   

  1. 1福州大学经济与管理学院, 福州 350108
    2武汉大学经济与管理学院, 武汉 430072
  • 收稿日期:2021-11-23 出版日期:2022-07-15 发布日期:2022-05-17
  • 通讯作者: 刘艳 E-mail:leannaliu@whu.edu.cn
  • 基金资助:
    国家自然科学基金-青年科学基金项目(72102043)

The development of employees’ feeling trusted by their supervisors

ZHU Ningyi1, JIANG Ning2, LIU Yan2()   

  1. 1School of Economics and Management, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou 350108, China
    2Economics and Management School, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China
  • Received:2021-11-23 Online:2022-07-15 Published:2022-05-17
  • Contact: LIU Yan E-mail:leannaliu@whu.edu.cn

摘要:

现有文献显示员工感知到被上司信任在工作场所中非常重要,因为这种感知会带来许多与工作相关的积极产出。虽然我们已经知道被上司信任感是如何发挥作用的,但是对它的形成机制却知之甚少。忽视这一感知的产生机制将会限制其在管理实践中的有效应用,因为被上司信任感只有被成功地激发才能使信任关系得到建立,并由此对员工的行为产生影响。作为一种由个体对信任相关信息加工而得的感知,员工被上司信任感未必等同于上司实际的信任水平。因此,要想通过让员工感知到被信任来进行有效的管理,作为授信方的上司不仅要主动做出信任的行为,更需要考虑如何让员工准确地感受到自己的信任。
基于符号互动理论和社会信息加工理论,本文构建了一个关于员工被上司信任感形成机制的理论模型。根据该模型,上司的授权与培养这两种管理行为被识别为影响员工被上司信任感产生的重要因素;授权与培养对员工被上司信任感影响的有效性依赖于员工的目标导向、上司的可信度以及团队焦虑水平;员工被上司信任感的产生会影响员工的忠诚与敬业奉献,其影响程度受制于上司所面临的管理风险。
通过揭示上司的信任行为如何以及何时能激发员工被上司信任感并由此对员工的工作行为产生影响,本研究在理论和实践上做出了三个主要的贡献。首先,被信任感不是由授信方或被信任方单独一方决定的,而是在二者的互动中形成。虽然过往研究曾检验过领导风格对被上司信任感的影响,但却未从信任互动的角度进行解释。本文识别出了授权和培养这两种可以传达典型信任信息的管理行为,从而在理论上拓展了关于被上司信任感前因的文献,在实践上为上司如何做可以让员工感受到被信任提供了新的思路。其次,尽管被上司信任感的形成有赖于社会信息加工,却鲜有研究对该过程进行过探索。根据信息加工理论,本研究对被上司信任感产生的机理及边界条件发起了新的对话。我们不仅关注信任信息加工的正反效应,还探索了信息相关度(员工目标导向)与可信度(上司可信度)对这一过程的影响。关注员工目标导向有助于识别基于信任的管理行为的有效目标人群,而关注上司可信度进一步明确了上司在相关信息传达中可能产生的积极或消极的两种不同的影响。实践上,这一探究为管理者提供了重要的指导,帮助他们有针对性地、有效地让员工感知到被信任。最后,通过探讨团队焦虑和管理风险这两个团队层面上的消极因素的调节作用,本文丰富了对上下级信任互动情境的理解。实践上,我们为管理者如何在高不确定和充满挑战性的环境中采用信任管理策略提供了启发。

关键词: 被上司信任感, 基于信任的管理行为, 员工目标导向, 上司可信度

Abstract:

The extant literature suggests that employees' perception of being trusted by their supervisors is important in the workplace, as such perception can lead to many positive work-related outcomes. Although we have understood how and why feeling trusted has consequences, little is known about its development. Overlooking how feeling trusted develops may limit its effective application to managerial practices, because it is only when felt trust is successfully triggered that it could lead to the establishment of trust relationship and ultimately affect employee behavior. As a perception derived from the processing of trust-related information, employees’ feeling trusted by their supervisors may not necessarily fit the supervisors' actual trust. Therefore, to better manage employees by making them feel trusted, supervisors as the trustors, should not only take the initiative to engage in trusting behaviors, but also consider how to make employees perceive their trust accurately.
Drawing on the symbolic interactionist view and social information processing theory, we develop a conceptual model about the development of employees’ feeling trusted by their supervisors. According to the model, delegation and coaching are identified as two of the critical factors that influence employees’ feeling trusted by their supervisors. The effects of delegation and coaching on feeling trusted depend on the employee’s goal orientation, on the supervisor’s trustworthiness, and on the level of team anxiety. While employees’ perception of being trusted influences their loyalty and dedication, the amount of influence exerted is conditional on the management risks faced by their supervisors.
By delineating how and when supervisory trusting behavior can make employees feel trusted and accordingly influence their work behaviors, the current research makes three important contributions both theoretically and practically. First, feeling trusted is not determined by the trustor or the trustee alone, but develops through interactions between the two parties. Although previous studies have examined the influence of leadership on feeling trusted by supervisors, they have not explained it from the perspective of trust interaction. We identify delegation and coaching as two types of supervisory trusting behaviors, through which supervisors can convey symbolic trust cues. By doing so, our study, theoretically, extends the understanding about the antecedents of feeling trusted by supervisors and, practically, offers new insights into what supervisors can do to make employees feel trusted. Second, although the development of feeling trusted by supervisors relies on social information processing, few studies have explored its internal mechanism. Based on social information processing theory, our research initiates a new dialogue on the mechanisms and boundary conditions regarding the development of feeling trusted by supervisors. We do not only focus on potentially positive and negative paths regarding trust information processing but also explore how information relevance (employee goal orientations) and credibility (supervisor trustworthiness) moderate those paths. The study of employee goal orientations is conducive to identifying the target employees for whom supervisory trusting behaviors are more likely to be effective, while the study of supervisor trustworthiness further clarifies the positive or negative influence that supervisors may have in trust information delivery and processing. Practically, this study provides important guidance for supervisors to manage the target employees by facilitating their feeling trusted in an effective manner. Third, by exploring the moderating effects of two negative team-level factors (team anxiety and management risk), our study enriches the understanding about the contexts of trust interactions between supervisors and subordinates. Practically, we provide implications for how supervisors can adopt trust management strategies in an environment full of high uncertainty and challenges.

Key words: feeling trusted by supervisor, supervisory trusting behavior, employee goal orientations, supervisor trustworthiness

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