Trust and Virtual Organisations - Emergent Considerations for Virtual Interorganisational Work in the Global Chemicals Industry

Paul Lewis, Maria Katsorchi-Hayes

2006

Abstract

The development of Grid computing technologies has stimulate additional interest in the concept of the virtual organization, with the promise of ‘always available’ processing power seeming to offer sufficient processing power to overcome any technical obstacles to transparent global inter-organizational working. However, whilst the academic literature has given much attention to the theory of virtual organization there have been few viable real-life examples. This paper reports on research undertaken in the UK Chemicals industry where the technical design of Grid middleware was supported by an interpretive investigation of the ‘fit’ between the needs of industry and the forms of interorganisational working that the middleware was intended to support. The research suggests that this discrepancy between interest in, and implementation of, virtual organizations may arise from a misunderstanding of the role trust plays in existing business practices and the consequent requirements for supporting trust in a virtual organization. Business relationships emerge to be deeply rooted in personal contact and popular and elusive views of looking at virtual organizing need to be reconsidered in favor of a more context-bounded approach.

References

  1. GOLD, http://www.goldproject.ac.uk. 2004.
  2. GOLD, www.neresc.ac.uk/projects/GOLD/projectdescription.html. 2005.
  3. Wright, A.R. and V.J. Bramfitt. The reality of virtual development. in RC Users Forum 7899. 1999. Bern.
  4. GOLD, (www.epsrc.ac.uk/CMSWeb/Downloads/Other/GOLD.pdf. 2005.
  5. Bachmann, R., Trust, Power, and Control in Trans-Organizational Relations. Organization Studies, 2001. 22(2): p. 337-365.
  6. Tyler, T.R. and R.M. Kramer, Trust in Organizations. 1996, Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
  7. Misztal, B., Trust in Modern Societies: The Search for the Bases of Social Order. 1996, Cambridge: Polity Press.
  8. Ammeter, A.P., et al., A social relationship conceptualization of trust and accountability in organizations. Human Resource Management Review, 2004. 14: p. 47-65.
  9. Lane, C. and R. Bachmann, The Social Constitution of Trust: Supplier Relations in Britain and Germany. Organization Studies, 1996. 17(3): p. 365-395.
  10. Jones, T.M. and N.E. Bowie, Moral hazards on the road to the virtual corporation. Business Ethics Quarterly, 1998. 8(2): p. 273-292.
  11. Luhmann, N., Trust and Power. 1979, Chichester: Wiley.
  12. Gallivan, M.J., Striking Balance between trust and control in virtual organization: a content analysis of open source software case studies. Information Systems Journal, 2001. 11(4): p. 227-304.
  13. Costa, A., Understanding the nature and the antecedents of trust within work teams, in The Trust Process in Organizations: Empirical Studies of the Determinants and the Process of Trust Development, B. Nooteboom and S. F., Editors. 2003, Edward Elgar: Cheltenham. p. 105-121.
  14. Lane, C., Introduction: Theories and Issues in the Study of Trust, in Trust within and between Organizations: Conceptual issues and empirical applications, C. Lane and R. Bachmann, Editors. 1998, Oxford University Press: New York. p. 1-30.
  15. Giddens, A., The Consequences of Modernity. 1990, Stanford, Ca.: Stanford University Press.
  16. Grey, C. and C. Garsten, Trust, control and post-bureaucracy. Organization Studies, 2001. 22(2): p. 229-250.
  17. Bachmann, R., Trust and power as means of coordinating the internal relations of the organization: a conceptual framework, in The Trust Process in Organizations: Empirical Studies of the Determinants and the Process of Trust Development, N. B. and S. F., Editors. 2003, Edward Elgar: Cheltenham. p. 58-73.
  18. Shapiro, S., The Social Control of Impersonal Trust. The American Journal of Sociology, 1987. 93(3): p. 622-658.
  19. Kasper-Fuehrer, E.C. and N.M. Ashkanasy, Communicating trustworthiness and building trust in virtual organizations. Journal of Management Studies, 2001. 27(3): p. 235-254.
  20. Handy, C., Trust and the Virtual Organization. Harvard Business Review, 1995. 73(3): p. 44-50.
  21. Knights, D., et al., Chasing Shadows: Control, Virtuality and the Production of Trust. Organization Studies, 2001. 22(2): p. 311-336.
  22. Wu, J. and P. Periorellis, CS-TR-907, Authorization-Authentication using XACML and SAML, in Technical Report Series. 2005, University of Newcastle.
  23. Clases, C., R. Bachmann, and T. Wehner, Studying Trust in Virtual Organizations. International Studies of Management and Organization, 2003. 33(3): p. 7-27.
  24. Cairncross, F., The Death of Distance: how the communications revolution will change our lives. 1998, London: Orion Business Books.
  25. Woolgar, S., Five Rules of Virtuality, in Virtual Society: Technology, Cyberbole, Reality, S. Woolgar, Editor. 2002, Oxford University Press: Oxford.
  26. Sitkin, S.B., On the positive effect of legalization on trust, in Research on Negotiation in Organization Studies, vol.8, R.J. Bies, R.J. Lewiski, and B.H. Sheppard, Editors. 1995, JAI Press: Greenwich, CT. p. 185-217.
  27. Ciborra, C., The Labyrinths of Information: Challenging the Wisdom of Systems. 2002, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  28. Whalley, P. and S.R. Barley, Technical Work in the Division of Labor: Stalking the Wily Anomaly, in Between Craft and Science: Technical Work In US Settings, S.R. Barley and J.E. Orr, Editors. 1997, ILR Press: Ithaca NY.
Download


Paper Citation


in Harvard Style

Lewis P. and Katsorchi-Hayes M. (2006). Trust and Virtual Organisations - Emergent Considerations for Virtual Interorganisational Work in the Global Chemicals Industry . In Proceedings of the 3rd International Workshop on Computer Supported Activity Coordination - Volume 1: CSAC, (ICEIS 2006) ISBN 978-972-8865-53-5, pages 95-106. DOI: 10.5220/0002475800950106


in Bibtex Style

@conference{csac06,
author={Paul Lewis and Maria Katsorchi-Hayes},
title={Trust and Virtual Organisations - Emergent Considerations for Virtual Interorganisational Work in the Global Chemicals Industry},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 3rd International Workshop on Computer Supported Activity Coordination - Volume 1: CSAC, (ICEIS 2006)},
year={2006},
pages={95-106},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0002475800950106},
isbn={978-972-8865-53-5},
}


in EndNote Style

TY - CONF
JO - Proceedings of the 3rd International Workshop on Computer Supported Activity Coordination - Volume 1: CSAC, (ICEIS 2006)
TI - Trust and Virtual Organisations - Emergent Considerations for Virtual Interorganisational Work in the Global Chemicals Industry
SN - 978-972-8865-53-5
AU - Lewis P.
AU - Katsorchi-Hayes M.
PY - 2006
SP - 95
EP - 106
DO - 10.5220/0002475800950106