Trust and the possibility of conflicts in hierarchical strategic networks
Keywords:
Trust, conflict, strategic networks, survey, mall.Abstract
It has become increasingly common for companies to participate in Strategic Networks as a means of obtaining the advantages associated with this kind of arrangement. However, another facet of this participation has surfaced, i.e. the emergence of conflict deriving from the relationship closeness present in the said Networks. The trust springing up from the strengthening of the relationships is cited as a possible way of mitigating these conflicts. The goal of this research is to verify, in the company-owners perception, what are the significant dimensions of trust in order to reduce the possibility of conflicts with the management of a strategic networks. As theoretical references, the concepts of Strategic Networks, conflict and trust are presented, and so are their correlations. For trust, its three dimensions are discussed: a) trust in capacity; b) trust in benevolence and c) trust in integrity. A survey of seventy-nine store-owners was conducted, all of whom were participating in a network. This survey measured their perception of trust and of possibility of conflict. The data analysis was done through a Factorial Exploratory Analysis, so to validate the construct and their dimensions, as well as through a Multiple Regression Analysis to test the proposed hypothesis. Only the trust in benevolence presented statistical significance. Three finds are worth highlighting. The first refers to the backing of the three dimensional trust model proposed by Mayer, Davis and Schoorman (1995). The second was the corroborated hypothesis that trust in benevolence contributed to the mitigation of possible conflicts. The belief that the network management is concerned about the well being of the store-owners diminishes the possibility of conflict. The third find indicates that other variables not included in this model are important for the mitigation of conflicts, since its explanatory power was of approximately 15%. These finds are important to the understanding of the Networks, because they point to the trust concept’s complexity, highlighting its importance in conflict resolution. Among the encountered limitations for this research are the sample size and the impossibility of generalization.
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