Feeling trusted by business leaders in China: Antecedents and the mediating role of value congruence

This paper examines the antecedents of felt trust, an under-explored area in the trust literature. We hypothesized that subordinates’ felt trust would relate positively with their leaders’ moral leadership behaviors and negatively with autocratic leadership behaviors and demographic differences between leaders and themselves. We also hypothesized the above relationships to be mediated by the leader-member value congruence. Results supported our hypotheses that value congruence mediated between autocratic leadership behaviors and demographic differences and subordinates’ felt trust, but not moral leadership behaviors, which had direct effects on subordinates’ perception of feeling trusted. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Ping Ping FuEmail:

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Dora C. Lau   (PhD, University of British Columbia) is an assistant professor of management at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Her research interests include demographic diversity and faultlines, rational trust, team dynamics, chain store management, and Chinese management. Her current research projects include faultline dynamics in small teams, trust reciprocity within vertical dyads, and the relationship between leadership and trust networks. Jun Liu   (PhD, Chinese University of Hong Kong) is an assistant professor in the OB and HR Department, School of Business, Renmin University of China. His research interests include leadership, psychological contact and research methods in managament. Ping Ping Fu   (PhD, State University of New York, Albany) is an associate professor of management at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Her research interests are mainly in executive leadership. She is the coordinator for the Chinese part of the Global Leadership and Organizational Effectiveness (GLOBE) project.