The Impact of Trust on the Creation of Knowledge and Innovation in Enterprises.

In discussions on the creation of trust in enterprises, the subject of the significance of intangible values in terms of its stimulation is increasingly undertaken. One of these is that of organizational trust which strengthens the level of cooperation between the employees and employee teams within the enterprise, which in turn is favourable towards the creation of knowledge. Trust aids the transfer of information that is necessary for the creation of knowledge. Hence, this may constitute a key attribute in its creation, which in turn, increases the opportunities for the enterprise to gain a competitive advantage on the market. The problematic issues of the ties between organizational trust and the creation of knowledge is a relatively rare subject matter for research analysis. The authors of this paper intend to fill the gap in this field and present the findings of empirical research into the role of organizational trust in terms of creating knowledge that favours innovativeness in enterprises. The assumption that trust influences the creation of knowledge and innovativeness in enterprises made it possible to formulate the research objective, which was to examine the impact of the dimensions of organizational trust (horizontal, vertical and institutional trust) on the creation of knowledge and innovativeness of employees. The assumed goal was executed owing to the application of the survey method. Empirical research was conducted on 179 enterprises from the list of the 500 largest enterprises in Poland. As a result of the research, significant statistical ties were discovered between the types of organizational trust and the process of creating knowledge. The positive impact of organizational trust on innovativeness in the analysed enterprises was indicated. The research findings acquired indicate the significant role of trust in terms of stimulating the processes of creating knowledge and innovativeness in large enterprises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]