The Quest for Trust in Technology-immersed Workplaces

In this paper, we analyze the determinants of employees’ perceptions of employer trustworthiness and of their willingness to be vulnerable in a technology-immersed workplace. By means of a factorial survey experiment, we investigate the causal impact of various active trust strategies based on technology and bureaucracy acceptance, trust and the leadership literature. By active trust strategies, we refer to means of the employer to actively cultivate and intensify the trust relationship in the context of technology-induced trust strain. Our analyses show that a participatory style of technology implementation and a salient experimental and error culture have a direct causal impact on employees willingness to be vulnerable; the impact of human-centered technology design and caring leadership principles, however, are mediated by trustworthiness perceptions.