The effects of HR information accessibility on organizational trust

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of employee’s ease of access to HR information on organizational trust and the moderating effect of the HR department trust. Prior research on strategic human resource management has mainly examined the impact of the High Performance Work System (HPWS) on corporate performance. Existing research has focused on the content and performance of the HR system, and has somewhat neglected to examine the process how HR systems functions and influences to organizational members. In order to delve into the process how HR systems works, this study focused on the effect of employee’s accessibility to HR information on organizational trust and additionally examined the moderating effect of the HR department trust perceived by its members. Data were collected from 215 full-time employees in Korea. As hypothesized, the ease of access to HR information showed a positive relationship with organizational trust. The moderating effect of HR department trust was found depending on human HR information accessibility, but not on physical HR information. Theoretical and practical implications on the impact of HR information accessibility were discussed.