The Impact of Organisational Trust on Resilience and Business Performance of R&D-Intensive Companies Operating in Service Industries

The purpose of the chapter is to construct a research model analysing the role of organisational trust and resilience in business performance. This model was validated through quantitative research. The survey sample consisted of 352 service companies operating in R&D-intensive industries. The data was collected in February 2023 using the CATI method. The data analysis has been conducted using PLS-SEM, applying SmartPLS 4 software. Results show a particularly strong direct effect of trust on resilience. Another strong effect observed was the effect of resilience on business performance. It was decomposed into two paths – direct and indirect – with the mediating resilience variable. Both paths were found to be statistically significant and strong, but the indirect path was found to be the stronger one. Results show that both trust and resilience have a substantial impact on business performance. In particular, resilience plays an important role in service companies operating in R&D-intensive industries. The results also indicate that to develop a high level of trust, good leadership and leaders’ skills play a major role. To develop resilience, leadership is also important, but similarly relevant are relationships with other actors, resource reserves, adaptation ability, and conscious risk management.