Organizational development: the use of trust as a tool.

Abstract

If we consider that organizational development depends on the adjustment that employees make to change, and that this adjustment depends on their perception on change, it is relevant to study how the organization develops mechanisms through time that diminishes employees’ reservations towards change. The role and behavior of the Human Resource function can be one of the key roles that it is relevant to study. This paper focuses on the use of organizational trust by the HRM function as a developmental strategy. We will discuss specifically how differences in the perceived power and autonomy of HR function have impact in the organizational development of trust by these agents through time. We used a qualitative approach and interviewed 14 selected key informants (HR function) from seven organizations. The critical incident technique was used as an effort towards the understanding of process through time, since the study is cross-sectional. The results show that if the HR function perceives the organization as their team, the use of trust is used strategically as a tool towards organizational development and adjustment. When HR function perceives their team as a small group (e.g. HR Department) trust is used only in this team and as group development strategy. If the HR function does not perceive the existence of a team of their own, trust is not used. To sum up, the use of trust depends on the autonomy of the function that determines its different perception of its own team. This has impact in organizational development with the results showing that trust can be useful in building organizational relationships through time that can better support change and adjustment towards HRM Systems changes.