Impact of psychological contract violation on interpersonal trust during mergers and acquisitions

We explored the relationship between knowledge workers’ perceptions of psychological contract violation and their interpersonal trust during mergers and acquisitions (M&As) to determine whether or not perceived commitment human resource (HR) practices can moderate the relationship between psychological contract violation and interpersonal trust. We collected 210 questionnaire responses from enterprises that were in the process of M&As in China, and structural equation modeling and regression analyses were used to analyze the data. We found that in certain contexts organizational trust (or distrust) can transfer to interpersonal trust (or distrust). This issue merits further discussion.