Abstract: |
This study examines trust-repair practices at the team level after organizational change. A qualitative research approach was adopted, and data were collected from key informants through focus group discussions and interviews. The data analysis involved thematic coding and followed the Gioia data analysis procedure. This study found that after organization change, trust can be repaired at the team level by improving team leaders’ knowledge in change management, and by enforcing communication, collaboration, information sharing and ethical behaviour among team members. This paper makes three key contributions by (1) identifying trust violations in teams, (2) proposing trust-repair mechanisms, and (3) extending the understanding of trust-repair and preservation at the team level following organizational change. This paper outlines active trust-repair mechanisms in an organizational change context and expands the current theory by presenting novel insights into organizational trust repair at the team level. This study also provides practical information from a real work context and can improve managers’ understanding of active trust-repair. In addition, this paper contributes to trust literature by proposing promising avenues for future trust-repair research. |