Mitigating the Harmful Effect of Perceived Organizational Compliance on Trust in Top Management: Buffering Roles of Employees' Personal Resources

This study considers how employees' POCdefined as their beliefs that the organizational climate stifles change and values compliance with the status quoreduce their trust in top management, as well as how this negative relationship might be buffered by access to two personal resources that support organizational change: openness to experience and affective commitment to change. Data from a sample of Pakistan-based organizations reveal that POC reduce trust in top management, but this effect is weaker at higher levels of openness to experience and affective commitment to change. These findings are significant in that they indicate that employees who operate in organizational climates marked by yea-saying can counter the difficulty of improving their job situation by drawing from adequate personal resources.