Proceedings of the International Association for Business and Society

Volume 4, 1993

Proceedings of the Fourth Annual Meeting

Interorganizational Collaboration Beyond Contracts

Considering an inter-firm alliance as an organizational practice in itself, this paper argues that its emergence and stability depend on the development and maintenance of trust between partners, where trust is an informal mode of control defined as a set of mutual anticipations and obligauons. Examining the role of trust in the creation and performance of alliances helps understand phenomena not covered by usual paradigms.