ABSTRACT
This chapter considers how trust has been conceptualized and the main theoretical approaches used, but also note the use of novel non-survey-based research designs. It explores briefly trust and the HR profession itself, reflecting on its role in creating, maintaining, breaching and repairing trust for organizations, before closing with an agenda for future research. Human resource management involves the operationalization of strategic interventions focused on human capital, designed to identify and develop resourceful employees. Pre-entry is a period of poten tially scarce information about the organization, save from the HR policies and practices them selves, and so trust is likely to be critical. Low initial employer trust is associated with lower trust and increased likelihood of psychological contract breach, while high trust buffers against subsequent breach, reducing the rate of employees' trust decline. Change in order to reduce the headcount of an organization has been a long-standing area for trust study.
