Good People: Proximity and Trust in Contracting and Knowledge Transfer
Keywords
No Thumbnail Available
Authors
Issue Date
2016-01-30
Language
nl
Document type
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Title
ISSN
Volume
Issue
Startpage
Endpage
DOI
Abstract
This thesis explores the research question: To what extent does proximity influence institutional and interpersonal trust regarding contracting by OI organisations in regional clusters? The question is examined by combining TCE’s formal trust concept with a socially embedded/ informal concept of trust, which has resulted in the formulation of three propositions.
1. The basic proposition is that the explanatory power of TCE can be enhanced by including perceptions about a partner’s trustworthiness on the basis of four trust constructs: openness, competence, concern, and reliability.
2. The second proposition is that interpersonal trust is facilitated by institutional trust through institutional proximity. Institutional proximity is considered bound to a certain national jurisdiction. Institutional proximity reduces transaction cost because of the reduced environmental uncertainty, and in so doing enhances formal trust.
3. The third proposition is that geographic proximity facilitates the creation of interpersonal and institutional trust. To explore this last proposition, two other notions of proximity are presented: social proximity and cognitive proximity.
The research is based on in-depth interviews, documentary and legal research. It takes a closer look at the Eindhoven region as an innovative cluster and assesses three open innovation organisations in the area: Holst Centre, DevLab and DITSS.
Description
Citation
Supervisor
Faculty
Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen