A dynamic model explaining why volunteers and paid employees loose trust in social enterprises.

Scholars agree that it is essential to identify factors that influence the wax and wane of employee's trust in their organization. In this paper, we focus on the dynamic relationship between psychological contract breach and trust. We contribute to the literature by distinguishing psychological contract breach--a cognition--from fulfillment--an attitude. Moreover, we distinguish state trust--a disposition--from momentary trust--inter-personal trust at a specific point in time. We are currently collecting weekly diary data from volunteers and paid employees working in eight Belgian social profit organizations. Data from four organizations was analyzed using multilevel path analysis. The results indicated that perceptions of psychological contract breach were negatively related to momentary trust. In addition, momentary trust was positively related to the threshold to perceive a breach the subsequent week. No significant relationships between fulfillment and state trust on the one hand and average momentary trust on the other could be discerned, although the preliminary nature of the data may have reduced the power to detect statistically significant effects. Implications and limitations of these preliminary findings are discussed.