Trust in organization as a moderator of the relationship between self-efficacy and workplace outcomes: A social cognitive theory-based examination

Drawing on a social cognitive theory perspective, we contend that an employee's trust in oneself, or self-efficacy, will interact with the individual's trust in the system, or trust in organization, to predict job attitudes and behaviours. Specifically, we expected that self-efficacy would have stronger effects on job attitudes (job satisfaction and turnover intentions) and behaviours (task performance and organizational citizenship behaviours) to the degree to which employees perceive high levels of trust in organization. Using data collected from 300 employees and their respective supervisors at a manufacturing organization in Turkey across three waves, we found that self-efficacy had more positive effects on job satisfaction, task performance, and citizenship behaviours when trust in organization was high. Interestingly, self-efficacy had a positive effect on turnover intentions when trust in organization was low, indicating that high trust in organization buffered the effects of self-efficacy on intentions to leave. The results suggest that the motivational value of trust in oneself is stronger to the degree to which employees also have high trust in the system, whereas low trust in system neutralizes the motivational benefits of self-efficacy. Practitioner points: Practicing managers should not only invest in increasing self-efficacy of their employees, but also invest in building trust to improve employees’ attitudes, behaviours, and performance. This is because when employee trust in organization is high, employee self-efficacy has greater potential to have a positive influence over job satisfaction, task performance, and organizational citizenship behaviours. Self-efficacy may actually increase an employee's desire to leave the organization when organizational conditions are unfavourable, such as in the case of low trust in the organization. Practicing managers should be aware that employees who have high levels of confidence may be at higher risk of turnover when they are unhappy with the organization.