BETWEEN TRUST AND CONTROL - DEVELOPING CONFIDENCE IN PARTNER COOPERATION IN ALLIANCES

Strategic alliances have been recognized as arenas with potential for opportunistic behavior by partners. Hence, a:firm needs to have an ade quate level of confidence in its partner's cooperative behavior. In th is article we examine the notion of confidence in partner cooperation in alliances and suggest that it comes from two distinct sources: trus t and control. We make the argument that trust and control are paralle l concepts and that their relationship is of a supplementary character in generating confidence. In addition. we suggest that control mechan isms have an impact on trust level and that the trust level moderates the effect of control mechanisms in determining the control level. Fin ally, we discuss various ways to build trust within strategic alliance s and important alliance control mechanisms.