The impact of using artificial intelligence in management decisions on employee trust: the mediating role of moral perception
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The growing use of artificial intelligence (AI) in managerial decision-making has raised critical concerns about its impact on employee trust and moral judgment within the organization. Although previous studies have recognized the effectiveness and objectivity of AI-aided decisions, little attention has been paid to the psychological processes by which AI affects trust. Drawing on Organizational Justice Theory, this paper examines how the use of AI-driven tools in management decision-making influences employees' trust in management and, specifically, whether employees' moral perceptions mediate the intervention's effect. The data were collected using a quantitative research design, and an online questionnaire was distributed to 317 employees working in public- and private-sector organizations in Spain. Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to test the proposed model. The results show that the use of AI in decision-making has a positive effect on moral perceptions and on confidence in employee management. Additionally, employees' moral perceptions significantly and partially mediate the relationship between AI use and trust in management. These findings point to the fact that the trust-promoting impacts of AI are not influenced exclusively by technological efficiency but are largely influenced by ethical judgments of employees about managerial behavior. The research has contributed to the AI ethics and organizational trust literature by demonstrating that moral perception is a key factor in AI-based decision-making and by offering practical guidance to managers seeking to use AI responsibly without compromising employee trust.
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© 2026 Horizons Intermediary Journal of Business Research. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). All rights reserved by the journal.
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