Reshaping relational social capital in the digital age: how digital tool usage influences the dual trust outcomes

Digital technologies have fundamentally transformed workplace interactions, yet our understanding of how these tools reshape relational social capital, specifically trust dynamics, remains incomplete. Drawing on signaling theory and social exchange theory, this study examines how digital tool usage intensity influences two distinct dimensions of social capital: employees' feeling of being trusted and their trust in others. Using two-wave time-lagged survey data from 428 employees in Chinese organizations, we find that digital tools function as a double-edged sword: they foster social capital through communication quality and psychological safety, while introducing "social risks" via perceived digital surveillance and technostress. Our findings advance social capital theory in the digital age by distinguishing feeling trusted and trusting others as parallel yet distinct outcomes, and by demonstrating that technology implementation choices carry powerful symbolic meanings that can either build or erode the organizational social fabric.