The Impact of Age, Interdependence and Perceived Risk of Opportunism on Inter-partner Trust in International Strategic Alliances

In recent years, great numbers of enterprises worldwide form International Strategic Alliances (ISAs) in order to expand internationally and gain global competitiveness. The objective of this paper is to present a number of propositions on the contextual factors that have an impact on the development of trust at the later stages of ISA operations. We propose that alliance age and interdependence will positively affect the development of trust among alliance partners. On the contrary, we expect that perceived risk of opportunism will have a negative impact on trust development among alliance partners.