Trust, reflexivity and knowledge integration: Toward a conceptual framework concerning mobile engineers

Human Relations · 2015 · Volume 68 · Issue 6

Abstract

Reduced team membership intensity and flux have triggered the emergence of a new cadre of professional workers. In an increasing number of industries, mobile engineers and other types of flexible human resources contribute significantly to team processes and the integration of team members’ knowledge. Little is known about the factors influencing their knowledge integration performance. Addressing this gap by focusing on the transitional nature of their work, we introduce a conceptual framework that models the influence of trust on knowledge integration through reflexivity. Principally, we argue that social and technical reflexivity are processes that transmit the effects of trust on knowledge integration. The interaction between trust and the proposed construct of perceived value of the assignment affects reflexivity’s overall impact on knowledge integration through different constellations of social and technical reflexivity. This interaction explains the paradoxical situation that high trust levels do not necessarily translate into higher knowledge integration performance and accounts for mobile engineers’ varied outcomes as knowledge integrators.

Keywords

knowledge integration, liminality, mobile engineer, propensity to trust, propensity toward reflexivity, social reflexivity, technical reflexivity, trust

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