Extract

Potential ties between the construct of ‘trust’ and the concept of ‘contracting’ find resonance in popular sayings and statements on collaborative relationships, such as ‘contracts destroy trust’, ‘no contract without trust’, ‘contracting as a deed of trust’, and ‘trust has to emerge from the contract’. Correspondingly, scholars studying inter organizational relations have established various interrelationships between both constructs. Some, for instance, have suggested that both phenomena substitute (Gulati, 1995; Kvaløy and Olsen, 2009), and/or complement each other (Arrighetti et al., 1997; Poppo and Zenger, 2002; Weibel et al., 2007; Li et al., 2010). Others have explored their dynamic interactions, suggesting that changes in trust and contracting may trigger reactions and responses from exchange partners (Vlaar et al., 2007; Ferrin et al., 2008).