Investigating mediating effect of perceived organizational support between SHRM practices and employee trust

Abstract

This article examines the relationship between strategic human resource management (SHRM) practices, perceived organizational support (POS) and employee trust. Due to uncertainty in the business environment, the Libyan oil and gas companies have been unable to focus on their internal organizational strengths and weaknesses. It has been a challenge for the organizations to deal with their internal capabilities. Therefore, the proposed framework and its findings are expected to improve our understanding of the importance of human resources (HRs) to deal with an environment that is fraught with uncertainties. Some analysis of the work in this article was conducted and presented in 2015. This article is a part of large project and a quantitative survey approach was used, followed by a sample frame consisting of the Libyan oil and gas sector companies that employ at least 50 employees. Structural equation modelling techniques were used to analyse the data. The results indicate that oil and gas companies pursuing best SHRM practices along with POS achieve enhanced trust of employees. This provides better understanding about the importance of SHRM practices to assist HR practitioners to support and manage employees, subsequently leading to sustainable performance.