Facilitating Trust Building in Networks: A Study from the Water Technology Industry

This paper analyses how action researchers can facilitate trust building processes in inter-firm networks and develops a framework for network development. A longitudinal case study of developing a regional network of water technology SMEs constitutes the empirical base. The paper argues that researchers can directly facilitate processes with a capacity to build two types of trust in different phases of network development, both characteristic-based and process-based trust. The findings indicate that processes to build characteristic-based trust can be facilitated through dialogue processes in temporary groups at network meetings. Processes to build process-based trust are stimulated by practical inter-firm teamwork. Furthermore, there seems to be a mutually reinforcing relationship between these two forms of trust formation, which can be influenced by action researchers. When the level of trust has reached a point of critical mass, new-coming firms seem to jump quickly through characteristic-based trust towards a relatively high level of process-based trust.