Organizational Citizenship Behavior and Trust: The Double Reinforcing Spiral

Research on trust and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) has focused mostly on how OCB performance may be a consequence of trusting relationships. However, recent studies of trust have sought to both broaden and deepen our understanding of trust and develop our appreciation of the complexity of the construct. This chapter examines how contemporary treatments of trust enhance our understanding of how trust and OCB performance interrelate. We argue that the relationship between trust and OCB is best modeled as reciprocal, taking the form of a double reinforcing spiral. We further discuss how this model informs our understanding of felt trust, trust violation, and trust recovery.