Professor Kurt Dirks
Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior
Olin School of Business
Washington University in St Louis
St Louis, USA

&

Professor Peter Ring
Professor of Management
Loyola Marymount University
Los Angeles, USA

Katinka Bijlsma-Frankema
Professor of Organization Sciences at EIASM
Associate professor of Organization Theory Department of Public Administration & Organization Science
Free University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Bart Nooteboom
Professor of Innovation and Organizational Learning Faculty of Economics and Business Administration
Tilburg University, The Netherlands

Professor Sim Sitkin
Faculty Director, Center of Leadership and Ethics
 Fuqua School of Business
Duke University Durham - North Carolina - USA

In the past decade, issues of trust in inter- and intra-organisational relationships have been increasing in importance on the agendas of organisational scholars, legitimated by changes in the social structure of societies, economic exchange relations and organisational forms. Due to deterioration in the binding power of reciprocal obligations, of hierarchical relations and of social institutions relying on hierarchy to sanction deviant behaviour, other mechanisms seem to be required to support co-operative behaviour in interactions. Within firms, lateral relationships and alliances are growing in importance, while new linkages between firms are being formed to achieve and maintain competitive advantage in the marketplace. In network forms and alliances, organisational performance becomes increasingly dependent on trustful relations between individuals and groups. A related development is the globalisation and virtualisation of markets and relations within and between organisations. Emerging ‘new communities’ like virtual teams and global business networks may bring new problems and related trust requirements that permanently challenge current insights within the field.

The workshop seeks to make a contribution to the development of a European research program in this area by establishing an international forum of scholars from different disciplines. The first two Amsterdam workshops on ‘Trust within and between Organizations,’ organized in 2001 and 2003, succeeded in bringing together scholars from a wide range of disciplines, such as economics, marketing, work and organisation psychology, organisation sociology, political sciences, information sciences and linguistics. At the first workshop, the participants decided to organize themselves in FINT, the First International Network on Trust (e-mail address: KM.Bijlsma@fsw.vu.nl). FINT members have since organized a track on trust at the EURAM conferences in 2002 and 2003, a symposium ‘Trust, rational choice or sense making?’ at the Academy of Management 2002 meeting and a track ‘Trust in hybrids’ at the EGOS colloquium 2004. A special issue of Personnel Review on ‘Trust within organisations (2003, vol 32, 5)’ and a special issue of the Journal of Managerial Psychology on ‘The micro-foundations of organizational trust (2004, vol 19, 6)’ have been published since and three publications are forthcoming or in preparation: an edited volume on ‘Trust under pressure (Edward Elgar, 2005),’ and special issues on ‘Trust and control’ of International Sociology (2005) and of Group and Organization Management (2006).

It is hoped that at the third workshop further exchanging of theoretical ideas, research methods and findings will produce new exciting knowledge, new forms of collaboration, and new publications.

To download the workshop programme, please click HERE

CHAIRS :

Dr Fergus Lyon
Centre for Enterprise and Economic Development Research (CEEDR), Middlesex University, The Burroughs, London NW4 4BT, UK

Dr. Guido Möllering
Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, Paulstr. 3, 50676 Köln, Germany

While advances in conceptualising trust have been impressive, empirical studies of trust continue to present particular challenges for the research community especially when it comes to capturing the processual nature of trust. There has been limited investigation into how trust is built up and maintained over time in different types of relationships on formal as well as informal bases. This session/track will examine trust building processes by drawing on a range of empirical based approaches. We anticipate that qualitative methods will be particularly suited to understanding process but we do not rule out valuable contributions from other approaches.

The processes by which trust is built are socially embedded, but there has been limited research examining how the institutional context shapes how trust is built up dynamically and, notably, how actors in trust building processes may seek to shape these trust-relevant conditions and institutions.

We would like to attract papers from a broad variety of methods including case studies, historical approaches, longitudinal studies, participant observation and other approaches based on qualitative interviews as well as new types of survey studies. They might address the theoretical foundations of their methods as well as the difficulties in collecting data for understanding the processual nature of trust.

We will consider promoting high-quality papers towards publication in a special issue of a journal or an edited volume.

CHAIRS :

Dr. Nicole Gillespie, University of Warwick, UK
Dr. Antoinette Weibel, University of Zurich, Switserland
Dr. Denise Skinner, Oxford Brookes University, UK

Research and the popular press suggest we are experiencing an erosion of trust in organisations, public and social institutions, and their leaders. Corporate fraud, scandals in religious institutions, and dissatisfaction with management, government and military operations are commonly cited as diminishing the trust placed in institutions, those who lead them and systems of accountability. Within organisations, constant change, mergers and acquisitions, downsizing and restructuring, cost-cutting, and violations of the psychological contract between employees and management, have been identified as undermining trust.

The serious social, economic, political, legal and emotional costs associated with trust violations, damaged relationships, and spiralling patterns of distrust are widespread. Consequences include, but are not limited to, lost collaboration and cooperation, withdrawal responses (e.g. quitting, loss of identification, commitment, and discretionary effort), escalating conflict, and attempts of retribution (e.g. shirking, cheating, stealing, sabotage and violent acts).

In the past two decades we have acquired considerable understanding of what constitutes individual and organisational trustworthiness, and the processes of trust building in a variety of interpersonal, group, and organisational contexts. However, there has been little conceptual or empirical work in the organisational sciences to guide our understanding of the mechanisms and processes involved in rebuilding trust once broken.

This is the central theme underlying this track. Submissions are invited which examine the antecedents, dynamics, processes and/or outcomes of rebuilding and repairing trust in organisational contexts. Contributions may focus on rebuilding trust within or between organisations, or across multiple levels. In addition to empirical research, we are calling for and encouraging conceptual and theoretical papers, and insightful reviews of existing relevant theory and research. Multi-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary contributions are encouraged, including contributions from psychology, sociology, organisational behaviour and theory, critical management, political science, and economics.

Possible research issues and questions include:
1. The stages and processes of rebuilding trust and re-establishing the trustworthiness of individuals, groups and organisations. Do the processes differ across levels?
2. How do trustors and trustees make sense of, experience, and respond to trust violations and/or attempts at trust repair? Are there systematic differences?
3. What distinguishes successful and unsuccessful attempts at trust repair? Are there circumstances when trust is irreparable?
4. Under what conditions does a downward spiral of distrust evolve, and how can it be circumvented?
5. Can a categorisation/typology of trust violations and trust repair practices be determined?
6. Rebuilding trust after downsizing, restructuring, or trust-damaging organizational change.
7. What are the appropriate methods for studying trust-processes? How do we need to rethink appropriate styles of empirical research to fit a process-based conception and approach to organizational trust?
8. What role do third parties play in the trust repair process? When are they required? Under what circumstances do legal and alternative dispute processes facilitate or hinder trust repair between individuals, groups and organisations?
9. What role does organisational culture and HR practices play in rebuilding trust within and towards organisations?
10. Are there cross-cultural differences in the expectations and processes of rebuilding trust?
11. How can historical examples of reconciliation and attempts at trust repair (e.g. the reconciliation processes in South Africa) inform our understanding of rebuilding relationships in organisational contexts?

There are two potential publication outlets associated with this track. First, the theme is in line with the AMR special call for papers by Kurt Dirks, Roy Lewicki, and Akbar Zaheer on “Repairing relationships within and between organisations” (papers due September 7th 2005). Second, the track Chairs will also explore promoting high-quality papers towards publication in a special issue of a journal or an edited volume."

CHAIRS :

Dr. Tally Hatzakis, Department of information sciences and computing, Brunel University, UK
Dr. Rosalind Searle, Department of Psychology, The Open University, UK

The role of emotion and emotional intelligence at work is increasingly recognised, and so is its impact on trust development. Research has established the influence of affective states on trust-related cognitive processes and attitudes, such as social judgments, risk assessment and orientation, collaboration and citizenship, cognitive flexibility and stereotyping.

Moreover, the impact of trustor’s emotions, such as fear, happiness, gratitude, liking on their trusting attitudes towards trustees, has been recently explored (Dunn and Schweitzer, 2003; Jones & George, 1998). Yet, trust research on the development of affective trust is limited, fragmented and often denied in the context of organisational studies. This track aims to be an outlet for such work.

Submissions are invited which examine the antecedents, dynamics, processes and/or outcomes of affect-based trust in organisational contexts. This track welcomes empirical, epistemological and theoretical papers of relevant issues. Multi-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary contributions are encouraged, including contributions from biology, psychology, sociology, organisational behaviour and theory.

Possible themes include:

1. What are the antecedents of affect based trust?
2. What constitutes affect-based trustworthiness?
3. How do trustors and trustees make sense of, experience, and respond to affect-based trust cues?
4. What is the impact of affect-based trust on rational expectations from others?

CHAIRS :

Professor Dr. Kirsimarja Blomqvist, University of Lappeenranta, Finland
Dr. Francis Bidault, EDHEC, Nice, France
Dr. G.A.C.Smid, Sioo, Interuniversity Centre for Organization Studies and Change Management, Utrecht, The Netherlands

Innovativeness and knowledge creation are critical for organizational competitiveness. Various types of innovations have been suggested: e.g. product, service, process, organizational, structural, social, market and business model innovations. Research literature is full with various approaches to understand innovations and organization’s capability to innovate. However, it seems that the role of trust in innovations, even if fundamental, may not be fully understood and explained.

Possible research paper topics include:

- The role of trust/ building trust in cooperative product development
- Trust and the speed of innovation
- Trust and leadership in innovation teams
- Trust and cross-functional/ cross-border innovation
- Trust in emerging technological innovations
- Trust and intra-organizational diversity
- Trust and asymmetric partnerships
- Trust in collaborative innovation with suppliers, universities, customers or partners
- Fast and individual-based trust vs. organizational trust in innovation
- The role and attitudes to trust in respect to innovation in different national, industry or organizational cultures and functions
- Trust and knowledge sharing in innovative organizations or partnerships

For this track both theoretical and empirical papers on trust and innovation on inter-organizational and intra-organizational aspects are invited. A variety of methodology and disciplinary background is encouraged.

Track chairs will contact journals to discuss a special theme issue on Trust in Innovation. Also a book option, or parts of a book focusing on Organizational Innovativeness will be considered.

CHAIRS :

Professor Dr. Sandro Castaldo
Professor Dr. Bruno Busacca
Professor Dr. Paolo Guenzi

(Bocconi University, SDA School of Management, Marketing Dept.,Via Bocconi, 8 - 20136 Milan, Italy )

Trust has rapidly become a key construct in marketing literature. Initially, a particular interest in this topic was shown by the relational approach: industrial marketing, distribution channels and sales management. More recently, also researchers of consumer and service marketing have focused their studies on trust as a key resource. Actually, the amount of research on this topic, as well as the variety of approaches adopted, call for an effort to analyse all contributions systematically, on the one hand, and for a radical improvement of knoweldge on more specific trust-related issues, on the other hand.

Researchers are invited to submit conceptual and empirical papers dealing in particular with the following topics:

- Trust, customer satisfaction, brand equity and customer loyalty: relationships and contiguities;
- Improving buyer-seller working partnerships through trust;
- Interdependencies between different relational layers: personal trust vs. interorganizational trust vs. brand trust;
- Longitudinal studies: the role of trust in the buyer-seller’s relational life cycle;
- Rebuilding trust in market relationships;
- On line trust and its antecedents;
- Trust and corporate social responsibility in marketing;
- Methods and experimental approaches to measure trust and its impact on market performances.

CHAIR :

Dr. Roxanne Zolin, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA, USA

The goal of this EIASM session is to explore ways that trust is critical to Knowledge Management (KM) and how KM influences trust within or between organizations.

Information sharing, i.e. both giving and receiving information, is influenced by trust. Transactive Memory Theory proposes that individuals seek out those who know what they want to know but information seekers also seek information from those they trust. The information seeker’s trust for the information source also influences the perceived value of the information to the information seeker. Source Credibility, a key criterion for an information source, basically means trust and perceived trustworthiness of the information provider. Similarly, the information source decides what information to provide based upon trust for the information seeker. Thus, information sharing requires trust of both the information seeker and the information source to maximize knowledge flows and reduce the transaction costs of information sharing. Nissen proposes that “culture, trust and incentives affect organizational learning and hence performance as much as process, technology and training do” (forthcoming 2005, xi).

In this workshop session we would like to explore questions such as:
- How is trust different for the information seeker compared to the information source?
- Does this asymmetrical relationship effect information sharing and knowledge flows?
- How does trust affect the transformation of information into knowledge?
- How does trust compare to, or work through organizational processes, technology or training to create organizational learning or performance?

From another perspective, KM can influence interpersonal, inter-group and intra-organizational trust relationships.
One conceptualization of KM is that of continuous organizational change through organizational learning. Organizational learning can result in incremental change, planned change, or organizational transformation, which requires a change of the organization itself, its culture and its shared organizational identity. All three levels of change could affect interpersonal, group or organizational trust. To successfully navigate organizational change processes also requires high levels of collective trust. KM and organizational learning create organizational change and introduce risk and uncertainty, which can make trust more important, but also harder to achieve.

Questions could be addressed, such as:

- How do knowledge flows affect interpersonal, intra-group and/or intra-organizational trust?
- Through what processes does KM affect trust?
- Does KM affect trust most through relationship change, structural change or cultural change?

We encourage authors to think broadly to make and/or test connections between theories of KM and trust.
The Journal of Knowledge Management Research & Practice welcomes the best papers from this session.

CHAIRS :

Dr. Frédérique Six, Free University Amsterdam
Dr. Denise Skinner, Oxford Brookes University, UK

In many countries the services delivered by the public sector are fundamental to the health, education, safety and well being of individuals and collective society. It is perhaps inevitable that the public has high expectations relating to performance and commitment associated with public sector organizations. Yet, the nature of much of what public sector organizations do is not easily policed nor measured in a meaningful way.

The relevance of trust in the public sector is, on the one hand, similar to private sector organizations in that products or services are delivered and managers and employees are engaged in an employment relationship. On the other hand, trust in the public sector differs from the private sector in the sense that politicians, public officials and civil servants depend more fundamentally on the trust and support of the public – civilians, businesses and stakeholder groups representing the public.

The nature, role and contribution of trust are therefore important factors which need to be explored in the context of the public sector. Papers which deal with any aspect of this topic are invited. In addition to empirical research and case studies, we welcome conceptual and theoretical papers which offer insightful into existing relevant theory and research. Suggestions for topics which could be covered include:

- The role of trust in public sector policy development and management
- The relationship between trust and the integrity of politics and public administration
- Maintaining trust internally and externally while serving the often conflicting demands of stakeholder groups
- Trust in public functionaries, roles and the relationship with trust in the political system
- Developing and maintaining trust between providers and users of services
- Issues of accountability, equity and justice in relation to trust
- The consequences of (lack of) trust for political support (particularly during elections)
- Differences between trust in employment relationships in the public and private sector

CHAIR :

Professor Dr. Tom Elfring, Free University Amsterdam
Professor Bengt Johannisson Växjö University

The role of networks as an integral part of attempts to explain entrepreneurial success is widely acknowledged. However, how networks initiate and organise entrepreneurial processes still remains unclear. We seek contributions in the area of the content and dynamics of entrepreneurial relations and networks. Relevant questions are: How do basic trust and acquired trust combine in relations and networks as the entrepreneurial organisation emerges? How do networks provide access to information and knowledge? What role do network ties and trust play in the transfer and recombination of knowledge? A second area of interest is the distinctive governance mechanisms that are thought to facilitate and coordinate network exchange. A critical question regards the role of trust between partners and its effect on the ability to spot coincidences that may emerge into opportunities and on the quality of the associated resource flows. The third area of interest is how the network structure affects entrepreneurial efforts. Contributions addressing the debate about the advantages and disadvantages of a dense network based on trust-based relations and the opposite of a sparse network rich in structural holes are welcome. A fourth related field is what new insights a network structure perspective may give into the discussion on innovativeness and viability of firms in clusters. How to get knowledge to circulate between various players in a cluster, enabling firms to discover, share and recombine knowledge to realize innovations? How to benefit from trust relationships in regional small firms clusters while avoiding a lock-in?

CHAIR :

Dr. A.C. Costa, Delft University, the Netherlands

In the past decades, scholarly thinking about governance of intra and inter-organizational relations has been shifting from an almost myopic focus on control to recognition of trust as an alternative mechanism that especially in situations of high risk proves it’s worth. Developments such as globalisation, virtualisation of work relationships and the growing importance of intangible resources to value-creation has curbed the effectiveness of control-based forms of governance in favour of trust-based forms. Recent research has demonstrated that trust brings important benefits for individuals, teams, and organizations.

By now, trust and control are commonly accepted as the most important means to deal with perceived risks in inter- and intra-organizational relations. The relation between trust and control, however, is a complex one and research has given rise to various and contradictory interpretations of how these factors relate. A well-known discussion is directed at whether trust and control are better conceived of as substitutes or as complementary mechanisms of governance.

The aim of this special session is to take the matter of how trust and control are related one step further, by bringing together empirical studies of inter- and intra-organizational relations. To highlight the importance of theoretically innovative and empirically rigorous research on the relationship between these two constructs, papers are invited that address relevant topics regarding this relationship, such as: Theoretical models describing the relation between trust and control in inter- organizational, organizational and interpersonal work relationships; Identification of key variables that determine the effectiveness of trust and control mechanisms; The role of leadership—formal and informal—on the emergence of trust and control; Different roles of trust and control within horizontal vs. vertical work relationships; Benefits and limitations of trust and control mixes in different contexts.

If you want to submit an abstract to this special session, please go to the "call for papers" section and upload your paper electronically.
Please do not forget to mention that it is submitted for THIS SPECIAL SESSION by using the 'scroll down menu' you will see when submitting.

LOCATION :

The conference will take place in the premises of the

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (Free University)
De Boelelaan 1085
SIXTH FLOOR, ROOMS C656 B AND C AND C629
1081 HV Amsterdam
the Netherlands

To download maps showing you the meeting rooms and lunches locations, please click HERE

To download a general map of Amsterdam, please click HERE

HOW TO GET TO ‘VU Campus’, Amsterdam

By car
From the direction of Utrecht/Amersfoort: take the ‘Ringweg A10’ – direction Den Haag. Exit Amstelveen (S 108), at the traffic light go to the left – direction Amstelveen-VU Hospital. **At the traffic light at the VU Hospital go to the left, now you are on De Boelelaan, drive on to the University building, you have to park your car on the parking lot and pay!

From the direction of Den Haag: Exit Amsterdam/Amstelveen (S108), at traffic light go to the left, direction Amstelveen-VU Hospital. See above **.

By public transport
From the Central Station you can take Metro 51 – direction Amstelveen – and get off at the VU-campus (CS-VU = 30 min). Follow the signs to Entrance number 1085

Tram 5 also goes from CS to the VU through the centre of town = 45 min. For both transports you need a two zones ticket (3 strips).

If you come by train from Schiphol Airport, you get off at the WTC/Zuid Station. You can take the tram 51 or 5 (direction Amstelveen) for one stop – they both stop at this station – or you can walk to the Campus (10 min).

You can always call the secretarial office: 020-598.68.05/-598.68.52/-598.68.54.

Other joining information is also accessible on :

http://www.english.vu.nl/About_the_VU/index.cfm/home_subsection.cfm/subsectionid/AA48467B-AA65-46E7-A542589955404B9F

TIMING

We intend to start the Workshop on Thursday October 27 around 8:30 am and end around 18:00 pm on the following day.

ACCOMMODATION :

Click HERE to download a list of suggested hotels.
You are requested to contact the hotel in case you need to book a room.