Trust as networking knowledge: precedents from Australia

Trust, rather than being simply a resource for establishing collaborative relationships between organizations, is an essential component of their constitution. At base, trust involves interpersonal relations of a specific type. These are relations where there is sufficient probability that a person or organization with whom one is in contact will perform an action that is beneficial, or at least not detrimental, for one to consider engaging in some form of cooperation with this person or organization in the future. Trust establishes situations in which participants in collaboration have a long-term and recurrent relationship. Where trust exists, organizations are more willing to collaborate with other organizations on a more reciprocal basis. Trust is especially important when collaboration takes place between competitors because the risk of opportunistic behaviour is higher. Where organizations share resources and information openly with other participants they will seek to reduce opportunistic behaviour through the mutual understanding and goodwill of parties. However, trust is not static; it is a dynamic process that evolves according to the development of the relationship, as one in which the more long-term the relationship, the greater the trust. In this paper, we will present the impact of trust on business networks and examine how their members developed knowledge through networking. © 2004 Kluwer Academic Publishers