Affective Trust in the Supervisor and Innovative Work Behavior: The Effects of Proactive Skill Development and Learning Goal Orientation

The main objective of this study was to examine the relationship between affective trust in the supervisor and innovative work behavior. In addition, this paper investigated the mediating role of proactive skill development in the affective trust - innovative work behavior relationship and the moderating role of learning goal orientation in the affective trust - proactive skill development relationship. Data for this study were collected from 220 employees drawn from four FMCG (fast moving consumer goods) companies based in Pakistan. Multiple regression analyses and the bootstrapping procedure were used to test the research hypotheses. Results revealed that proactive skill development partially mediated the effects of affective trust in the supervisor on innovative work behavior. Furthermore, we found that learning goal orientation strengthened the direct effect of affective trust in the supervisor on proactive skill development and also strengthened its indirect effect on innovative work behavior. The theoretical and practical implications of our results and the limitations of this research are discussed.