The complexity of trust in business collaborations

• Premises underpinning theoretical perspectives of trust in business collaborations are presented.
• A dynamic, process view of trust evidenced through the literature is described.
• Aspects remaining unexplained through a dynamic, process view of trust are argued.
• A complexity perspective of trust is theorised to address these limitations.

Research on trust in business collaborations is generally founded on the premises that: a) cognitive trust is initially defined within contractual procedures; b) positive experiences lead to adjustments in contractual and/or informal arrangements, and c) cognitive trust is eventually supplanted by affective trust. This dynamic, process view of trust fails to capture the impact of trust experiences in external collaborations on trust emergence in a focal collaboration, and the complexity of trust co-evolution as each actor interprets and responds to the other's communication, behaviour and action. A complexity conceptualisation of trust as a self-organising, adaptive phenomenon can help us better understand the way trust develops. Through engaging with complexity theories as metaphors to enrich trust theory, trust is described as ‘self-organising’ as new cognitive, interpretive schema are evoked, and ‘adapting’ in response to trust experiences external to the collaboration. A complexity perspective evokes a new field of research questions and rich methodological opportunities.

Chinese abstract业务协作方面的研究一般基于以下前提：1）认知信任最初规定在合同程序中;2）积极体验带来合同和（或）非正式安排的调整；3）认知信任最终被情感信任取代。这种动态流程视图未能捕捉到外部重点合作产生信任的体验影响，也未能捕捉到随着个人理解并回应对方的交流和行动而产生共同的信任增进时的复杂性。作为一种自发组织的适应现象，复杂的信任概念可以帮助我们更好地理解信任发展的方式。信任理论通过添加复杂性隐喻得到丰富，信任被描述为新认知的“自我组织”，解释模式被诱发，并且响应了外部协作的信任体验“适配”。复杂性角度的分析开启了有关研究问题和大量方法论机会的新领域。