Trust Development in International Collaborations

The paper sets out to investigate the development of trust in international collaboration activities through an analysis of the development of accepted behaviours and behavioural values on a micro-level. This paper will... [ view full abstract ]

The paper sets out to investigate the development of trust in international collaboration activities through an analysis of the development of accepted behaviours and behavioural values on a micro-level.

This paper will focus on collaborations between distinct organisations in the private and / or public sector who agree to collaborate in concrete projects for commercial gain or to deliver public goods. Such projects can be considered to have three broad stages. Firstly the initial negotiation phase where relationship building, joint investigation of the potential for collaboration and then concrete proposals and finally negotiated agreements are developed.

The paper will combine negotiation theory and theories of trust development focussing on the concept of process trust to investigate concrete collaboration cases an to uncover how trust development process impact the success of the collaboration endeavour.