مبانی در حال تغییر تشکیل اعتماد متقابل در روابط درونی سازمانی: یک مطالعه دوتایی از همکاری پژوهشی دانشگاه و  صنعت  The changing bases of mutual trust formation in inter-organizational relationships: A dyadic study of  university-industry research collaborations

1. Introduction Trust is fundamental to successful collaboration in interorganizational relationships. It can be defined as a psychological state of willingness to be vulnerable based upon positive expectations of the intentions or behavior of another party in uncertain situations (Morgan & Hunt, 1994; Rousseau, Sitkin, Burt, & Camerer, 1998). Research collaborations between independent partners are exposed to a high amount of uncertainty, and efforts to capture possible future events through contractual specifications therefore have their limitations. Consequently, trust is a key factor for explaining variation in the outcomes of inter-organizational relationships. However, the literature indicates that trust is not static; rather, trust can vary over the length of the relationship (Schilke & Cook, 2013; Vanneste, Puranam, & Kretschmer, 2014). Thus, examining how trust develops over the duration of inter-organizational relationships is of critical concern. The decision to trust each other, research suggests, is made on different bases as a relationship goes through discernible stages (Lewicki & Bunker, 1996; Zaheer, Alvert, & Zaheer, 1999). Early in relationships, trust is often founded on depersonalized bases (Li, 2008; Schilke & Cook, 2013) while later in relationships, trust is grounded in more personalized associations (Levin, Whitener, & Cross, 2006; Lewicki & Bunker, 1996). Thus, while parties are apt to rely on institutional categorizations of each other at the beginning of a relationship, over time, trust is increasingly based on the experience of repeated and reciprocal interactions and behaviors (Levin et al., 2006; Ring, 1996). These exchanges enhance understanding and knowledge of each other such that the parties may eventually ‘think like’, ‘feel like’, and ‘respond like the other’ (Lewicki & Bunker, 1996, p. 123). This latter basis of trust emerges from the internalization of mutual preferences and working styles and fosters acting in each other’s best interest (Poppo, 2013). However, there is a lack of empirical research that has examined the bases of trust as an inter-organizational relationship progresses. While the studies of Dwyer, Schurr, and Oh (1987), Ring and Van de Ven (1994), and Das and Teng (2002) have advanced our conceptual understanding of developmental phases of inter-organizational relationships, we know much less about the changing bases of trust in this process (Poppo, 2013). This study seeks to fill this void by examining whether the foundations of trust are contingent upon the maturity of the relationship between the partners. Essentially, we explore the possibility that partner X bases its trust of partner Y with whom it is familiar on different factors than those it would rely on when first-hand experience with the other party is lacking. In particular, we examine whether trust is more strongly associated with a depersonalized base (i.e., demographic similarity) in the very early stages of interorganizational relationships and with personalized bases (reciprocal communication and decision process similarity) in the intermediate and mature stages of the relationship. By doing so, this study adds to our understanding of the varying bases of trust formation in interorganizational collaborations.