Too small or too large to trust your partners in multipartner alliances? The role of effort in initiating generalized exchanges

Sara Thorgren, Joakim Wincent and Jessica Eriksson

Scandinavian Journal of Management, 2011, vol. 27, issue 1, 99-112

Abstract: Summary This article describes how smaller and larger firms face difficulties in establishing trust in multipartner alliances. Using survey data from a sample of 141 firms engaged in such alliances, we examine a curvilinear relationship between firm size and trust. Our results suggest an inverted U-shaped relationship between firm size and the degree to which a firm develops trust in partners. We also establish that effort to establish generalized exchanges is important for trust building. Specifically, we notice the inverted U-shape to be particularly prominent among firms that do not make the effort to establish generalized exchanges, which implies that smaller and larger firms depend upon concerted effort to establish generalized exchanges in developing high levels of trust in alliance partners. This has implications for explaining important influences on trust building in social exchange systems.

Keywords: Firm; size; Trust; Generalized; exchanges; Alliance; Multipartner; Social; categorization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0956522110001302
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:scaman:v:27:y:2011:i:1:p:99-112

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/872/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... me/872/bibliographic

Access Statistics for this article

Scandinavian Journal of Management is currently edited by Janne Tienari

More articles in Scandinavian Journal of Management from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().