Collaborative research programmes: building trust from difference

Many technology policies support collaborative research, particularly invol ving small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), in the hope such projects w ill result in economically productive relationships. However, collaborative projects bring with them their own inherent management problems because of the dual nature of project control. When the collaboration partner is a re search institute or university, the mixing of the different organizational cultures can also result in conflicting attitudes towards the management of the project. These factors combine to provide a barrier to the establishme nt of trust between the project partners. This study addresses the importance of collaborative policy instruments in establishing different levels of trust, by looking at one such intermediary scheme, the Technology for Business Growth (TBG) programme which supports collaborative R&D projects between New Zealand industry and research instit utions. Contractual and competence trusts were facilitated by the TBG appli cation procedures. Cultural differences were found to have some positive im pacts on the development of competence trust. However, in general, goodwill trust evolves only if repeat collaborative relationships occur. It is prop osed, therefore, that a hierarchy of policy mechanisms could provide the pl atform for research partners to progressively develop a goodwill trust base d relationship that will endure beyond the support of the intermediary prog ramme. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.