Abstract
Trust is a critical, yet under-examined mechanism in reverse knowledge transfer (KT) in cross border acquisition. Our article presents an empirical investigation of the role played by trust in reverse KT. Based on a survey conducted on a sample of 103 employees of a Chinese acquiring firm and its UK subsidiary, we established that trust is affected positively by distributive justice and negatively by psychic distance between acquiring and acquired firm. Moreover, we found that the negative effect of psychic distance on trust is lowest when perceptions of procedural justice are highest. Furthermore, we found that trust positively impacts reverse KT between acquiring and acquired firm, playing a pivotal role in it. Rather strikingly, we found no direct association between absorptive capacity of acquiring firm and reverse KT. However, we found that trust plays a mediating role in explaining the relationship between the absorptive capacity and reverse KT.