Investigating the Mediating Role of Interpersonal Trust in Relation between Self-Efficiency and Workplace Friendship

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between self-efficacy and workplace friendship of Iran Islamic Azad universities’ faculty members with consideration of interpersonal trust as mediator. This research is a an applied one in terms of orientation, descriptive correlational in terms of strategy and, and a cross-sectional research in terms of time horizon. The statistical population of the study consisted of all faculty members of Islamic Azad University in the academic year 1395-1396 and 393 subjects were selected through multi-stage cluster sampling method. Three questionnaires were administered to collect date. These questionnaires were Sherer General Self-Efficacy (1982), McAlister Interpersonal Trust (1995), and Workplace Friendship Scale (Nielsen, Jex and Adams, 2000). Reliability is confirmed by Cronbach's Alpha coefficients of 0.87, 0.89 and 0.82.Experts ideas were used for validity confirmation.  Data analysis was done by structural equation modeling. The results illustrated that self-efficacy has no direct effect on workplace friendship but the interpersonal trust has a mediating role in the relation between self-efficacy and workplace friendship. It is suggested that universities’ chief executive officers and administrators create an environment to build trusting relationships among faculty members to improve workplace friendship.