The moderating effects of trustor characteristics and the cost of being trusted on the relationship between felt trust and OCB intention

The roles of subordinates’ trust in supervisors and subordinates’ feeling of being trusted by those supervisors (i.e., felt trust) are equally important for understanding trust relationships. However, subordinates’ felt trust has been less investigated compared with subordinates’ trust in their supervisors. Although the relationships and the mediators between felt trust and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) are being increasingly studied, the moderators of these relationships are rarely investigated. Based on the trust model and on the mechanisms of the effects of felt trust on job performance proposed by previous studies, we select supervisor behavioral integrity, non-work relationship with supervisor, and perceived OCB stress as potential moderators for this study. We found that supervisor behavioral integrity moderates the relationship between felt trust and OCB intention, and that the higher the supervisor behavioral integrity is, the stronger the relationship becomes. Further, we found that perceived OCB stress moderates this relationship, and that the relationship is stronger when perceived OCB stress is lower. Interestingly, perceived OCB stress also moderates the moderating effect of supervisor behavioral integrity, albeit through a different mechanism. Consequently, the moderating effect of supervisor behavioral integrity is stronger when perceived OCB stress is higher. Unexpectedly, employee non-work relationship with supervisor does not moderate the relationship between felt trust and OCB intention. This study fills the knowledge gap on the moderators of felt trust mechanism, and provides new evidence to clarify controversies regarding the mediating role of organization-based self-esteem and felt obligation in the literature.