Abstract: As a type of trust, feeling trusted has been paid more and more attention. Some scholars believe that it can stimulate employees’ positive behavior. But in recent years, scholars have found that it can also lead to employees’ negative behavior. According to the Job Demands-Resource Model and Conservation of Resource Theory, this study believes that feeling trusted is both a benefit and a burden, and constructs a double-edged sword model, namely an empowering path to stimulate the proactive behavior and an overload path to hinder the proactive behavior. In addition, this study also examines the moderating roles of power distance orientation in these two paths. The research hypotheses are tested using structural equation modelling based on 303 employee self-assessment data from three time points. The results show that feeling trusted can not only stimulate employees’ self-efficacy and promote their proactive behavior, but also aggravate their role overload and hinder their proactive behavior; power distance orientation tends to play a negative moderating role between feeling trusted and role overload. In other words, the higher the power distance orientation, the weaker the positive relationship between feeling trusted and role overload.

Key words: feeling trusted, role overload, self-efficacy, proactive behavior, power distance orientation