Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/96567 
Year of Publication: 
2009
Series/Report no.: 
ESMT Working Paper No. 09-005
Publisher: 
European School of Management and Technology (ESMT), Berlin
Abstract: 
We explore the determinants of the willingness to rely on trust in a business partnership where both partners are at risk. By focusing on the willingness to rely on trust (WTRT) we reduce the methodological challenge of perception-based approaches where trust is measured as an expectation on the partner's behavior. Executives in several countries were presented with a proposal for a business partnership and were asked about the level of safeguards they would require in the agreement, their main concerns as to future conditions, and to what extent their views would be affected by several behaviors and/or events. Twelve hypotheses are tested using path analysis and multiple/hierarchical regressions. Whereas our findings confirm prior results on differences in the propensity to trust between nationalities, they suggest that several organizational, functional and contextual variables mediate their impact in determining WTRT in inter-organizational ventures. Among these are the partners' cultural proximity, their concerns about business risk, and two organizational demographics regarding the size of the organization. In addition, we found that sensitivity to external information on partner's benevolence and the respondent's education and industry affected WTRT significantly.
Subjects: 
inter-organizational trust
willingness to rely on trust
trustworthiness
contractual safeguards
international joint ventures
business partnerships
international business
JEL: 
M16
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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