Volume 21, Issue 1, February 2008

Identification-based trust is viewed by a number of organis-ational theorists as playing a crucial role in establishing a constructive working relationship between management and labour. It is a form of trust that is established when the preferences of the other have been internalised. This article argues that the theology of the covenant has an important contribution to make to the understanding of identification-based trust regarding management-employee relations. God’s deepest intention in establishing the covenant is for the people to internalise the divine will and purpose. The ideal of identification between God and the people reached a high point in the new covenant proclaimed by the seventh and sixth century prophets, and ultimately fulfilled in Christ. The partnership between God and Israel, and later between Christ and the Church, demonstrates in a most vivid way a truth that social psychologists and organisational theorists have been recently establishing through empirical research: when there is a strong sense of group identity persons tend to own the corporate vision.