To explore the relationship between financial management autonomy and creative work, this study introduces the concept of institution-based trust. Using data from a survey on 962 researchers, the results show that financial management autonomy is positively related to researchers’ creative work behavior, but the effect is mediated by the perceived autonomy; institution-based trust moderates the mediating effect. Thus, this paper proposes to enhance the role of research institutions as the governance unit of the scientific community to develop institution-based trust.