Trust in Effective International Business Cooperation: Mediating Effect of Work Engagement

Abstract

Objective: This study aims to analyse the relationships between relational competence and its trust-building processes with individuals’ traits considered as psychological antecedents of inter-organizational relationships (IORs), outcomes. We hypothesize that organizational trust-building competence, situational trust, trust propensity, and autonomous motivation of cooperating teams and their managers influence IORs outcomes through work engagement of cooperating people.

Research Design & Methods: We addressed 210 managers and 982 employees responsible for inter-organizational cooperation from medium and big companies. As explanatory model we adopted the job resources-demands (JR-D) model. Correlation, regression, mediation analyses with bootstrapping, and structural equations modelling (SEM) were used.

Findings: Our analyses confirmed positive role of both organizational competences and psychological states of individuals, as valuable mediators in translating the potential of personal traits of teams and managers into IORs outcomes.

Implications & Recommendations: As both psychological variables of people responsible for the course of IORs and relational competences of organizations play a vital role in reaching outcomes in IORs attention should be paid simultaneously to both aspects. Our findings highlight the necessity for interdisciplinary research in the field of IORs.

Contribution & Value Added: We expose the multilevel and multifactor character of relationships between the antecedents of firms success in IORs, with the use of relationships theory in organization science, and theories proposed by psychology of work and organization.

Keywords

inter-organizational relationships, trust-building competence, interorganizational relations, job demands- resources model

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