假如信任反复无常：感知上级信任波动性以及工作负荷与同理心的影响研究

以往信任研究忽略了重要一点：下级很有可能在一段时间内感知到来自上级的信任是波动的，即信任随时间变化存在波动性特征，且个体在感知信任稳定性方面也存在差异。文章引入感知信任波动性概念，借助不确定性管理理论，探讨感知信任波动性对下级状态感恩、工作压力以及工作投入的影响，并检验了工作负荷与同理心的调节作用。通过连续7个工作日的日志研究法问卷调研，研究发现：工作负荷对感知信任波动性与下级状态感恩、工作压力和工作负荷关系的调节效应假设未得到支持；同理心的调节效应得到了部分支持，其中同理心缓解了员工感知信息透露波动性对工作压力的负面影响；增强了员工感知依赖波动性对状态感恩的负面影响；增强了员工感知依赖波动性对工作投入的负面影响。研究结果进一步对“下级感知上级信任波动性可能产生何种结果，以及组织情境和个人特质如何影响这种结果”提供了基于时间波动性的解释，也使管理者真正清楚“信任作为一种策略用于管理员工，当其存在波动性时，如何进一步引发不确定性管理问题”。

If Trust is Variable: Research on the Variability of Feeling Trusted from the Superior and the Impact of Workload and Empathy

Feeling trusted by the superior is absolutely a recognition and encouragement for the subordinate，and it is an important antecedent of stimulating employees’ work attitudes and behaviors. However, previous trust researches neglected a very important point that, the subordinate is likely to experience the variable trust from the superior during a period of time. That is, trust is variable over time, and individuals also have differences in perceived trust stability. Based on Uncertainty Management Theory, this paper introduces the concept of Feeling Trusted Variability, and examines the impact of feeling trusted variability on state gratitude, work stress and work engagement, and the moderator role of workload and empathy. With the daily-dairy questionnaire survey and data analysis in seven consecutive working days, this paper verifies the moderating effects of empathy, and the results suggest that: empathy relieves the negative impact of perceived information disclosure variability on work stress; empathy strengthens the negative impact of perceived reliance variability on state gratitude; and empathy strengthens the negative impact of perceived reliance variability on work engagement. Results of this study further provide an explanation for the result of subordinate perception of supervisor’s trust variability based on time variability, and how organizational context and personal traits affect these outcomes. It also keeps managers conscious of the probability of further uncertainty management issues when trust is variable as a strategy to manage employees.