Moving towards the future: The impact of Organizational Structure and Organizational Trust

Abstract

Purpose: Recent research stresses the need to increase the focus on the Human Resource Management (HRM) processes (Bowen & Ostroff, 2004), and how we can reduce the negative impact of this modifications for workers. Building on Social Exchange Theory and the work by Whitener (1997), we hypothesized that organizational trust (OT) could be an intentional result of HRM interventions, as a facilitator in change processes, in order to diminish the risk perception by the workers and promote adjustment. As far as we know, no research has explored the role of structure and OT in modifications of HRM. Design/Methodology: To explore these ideas, we conducted 10 interviews to managers, from four organizations with comparable structures during major HRM modifications. Results: Our results suggest that mechanistic structures, in spite of their central concern with the standardization of interactions, do not rule out concerns with the development of OT. In organizations where the HRM top manager was in a clear power position, organization-wide trust was an important criterion for monitoring change episodes. Limitations: It remains to be tested how much our results generalize to organizations with this or other type of structure and power of the HRM function. Research/Practical Implications: These results imply that the active development of OT acted as a damping factor in change, reducing the risk perception to employees towards adjustment. Originality/Value: To our knowledge, the research is the first to study the impact of structure and power in the active development of OT as a solution towards adaptation.