The Moderating Effect of Within -- Team Trust on Employee Engagement and Workgroup Outcomes

This study explored daily variability of employee engagement. The study used daily measures of hindrance demands, challenge demands and employee engagement to examine the relationship between these constructs as well as for their influence on outcomes of job satisfaction, productivity and safety for workgroup members. Additionally, we explored high involvement management as an antecedent of employee engagement. The main area of interest was evaluating the influence of within-team trust as a potential modifier of the relationship between employee engagement and job satisfaction, safety, and productivity. Preliminary analysis revealed there were days when a statistically significant conditional indirect effect was found in the relationship between employee engagement and job satisfaction when within-team trust was incorporated as a modifier in the model. This influence was observed on Day 1 for the indirect path of hindrance demands through employee engagement to job satisfaction and on both Day 3 and Day 4 for the indirect path of high involvement management through employee engagement to job satisfaction. This implies the potential role of within-team trust as a modifier of an employee’s level of engagement on employee perception measures such as job satisfaction. Final data collection and analysis is currently underway