The Role of Trust in Strategic Alliances

Abstract: This thesis provides a coherent theoretical account of the role of trust in strategic alliances from varied disciplinary perspectives and by establishing some common ground among these perspectives. Approaching the integration of the literature about trust and strategic alliances from the resource based view, the transaction cost view, the dialectical perspective, and the social network perspective is aimed at creating a new systematic explanatory scheme. The unique combination of these four perspectives provides overlapping explanations for strategic alliance behaviour and serves as a methodical device for analysing the dynamics of trust relationships. This theoretical-methodical foundation will serve as tool for sorting out and highlighting different research streams regarding the two key topics. An integrative framework of the notion of trust in strategic alliances is built around the key issue “culture of trust”. The culture of trust is addressed, because one of the main findings will be that collaborative relationships require some minimum social base with trust as its constitutive element. Arguments will be provided that inter-organizational ventures characterized by high interdependence, require the trust mechanism to make leadership effective. The tension between trust and control in strategic alliances is discussed and attention is drawn to the possibilities and key abilities of leaders in establishing trust as a constitutive element in strategic alliances.