Interpersonal Trust and Its Role in Organizations

In the social sciences literature, the concept of “trust” as an important phenomenon has been increasingly recognized. Basically it shows us the nature and importance of establishing and maintenance of trust in building business to business and interpersonal relations. In particular, employees’ trust in their leaders has been regarded as an effective tool behind positive organizational outcomes. Therfore, within the organizational context, the main purpose of this conceptual paper is to review the current literature on interpersonal trust, its antecedents and consequences. The review of the existing research has summarized the main findings on associations between participation in decision making, feedback from and to employees, employee empowerment, and interpersonal trust (between supervisor and employees). Finally, this conceptual paper has suggested that trust-building practices between managers and workers can positively lead to high productivity and organizational commitment in all the organizations whether public or private.