Abstract
Reverse mentoring is a critical initiative for activating bottom-up knowledge flow in the digital and intelligent era. Yet, as knowledge providers, employees often face dual psychological barriers: being “not dear” (due to fear of authority) and “not will” (due to psychological entitlement), which hinders the effective implementation of this practice. While leader trust is considered a vital influencing factor, its underlying mechanisms remain unclear. Drawing on social exchange theory and self-determination theory, this research investigates how felt leader’s trust promotes reverse mentoring giving by enhancing employees’ felt obligation and reducing their psychological entitlement. We also examine the moderating role of power distance belief. Through two studies—a three-wave field survey (NStudy1 = 405) and a four-condition scenario-based experiment (NStudy2 = 292)—we find that felt leader’s trust facilitates reverse mentoring giving by increasing felt obligation and decreasing psychological entitlement. Furthermore, power distance belief moderates the strength of these dual paths: for employees with high power distance belief, the enabling path via felt obligation is stronger, whereas the obstacle-clearing path via reduced psychological entitlement is weaker. By adopting an employee-centric psychological perspective, this study deepens our understanding of the micro-foundations of upward knowledge sharing and provide theoretical insights and practical implications for managers seeking to implement reverse mentoring effectively.
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