Does GenAI as a personal resource improve employee performance and engagement in the workplace?

Abstract

This study examines whether generative AI (GenAI) can operate as a personal resource that enhances employee performance by strengthening user experience, trust, and work engagement. It tests if trust mediates the link between GenAI user experience and engagement and, in turn, performance. An explanatory sequential mixed‐methods design is used. Study 1 surveys 251 Indonesian professionals who use GenAI at work and estimates a covariance-based structural equation model. Constructs draw on TRI (optimism, innovativeness), TAM (usefulness, ease of use), trust, work engagement and employee performance. Study 2 gathers expert insights from 69 full professors in management to interpret and enrich the quantitative results. Optimism and innovativeness positively influence GenAI user experience, with optimism showing the stronger effect. User experience significantly increases trust, and trust significantly predicts work engagement. The direct path from user experience to engagement is not significant; instead, trust fully mediates this relationship. Work engagement, in turn, significantly improves employee performance. Experts corroborate the centrality of trust, emphasizing reliability, transparency, and fit-for-purpose use as prerequisites for sustained productivity gains. Cross-sectional data limit causal inference; future longitudinal and cross-cultural studies are encouraged. Extending the model to incorporate JD–R “loss cycle” variables (e.g., job demands, technostress, exhaustion) would deepen understanding of boundary conditions. Organizations should invest in capability building, clear guardrails, and verification workflows; vendors should improve transparency, provenance cues and controllability to earn user trust. Leaders play a pivotal role in positioning GenAI as an assistive resource and in instituting quality checks that convert usage into engagement and performance. The paper integrates TRI and TAM within a JD–R lens to show that trust is the decisive mechanism translating GenAI experience into engagement and performance. It reframes GenAI as a personal resource whose value materializes only when trust is deliberately cultivated.

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