The impacts of competence-trust and openness-trust on interorganizational systems

Trust can have imperative influences on the use of interorganizational systems (IOSs). Management, sociology and psychology literature distinguish different types of trust and attribute distinctive impacts to these types. However, little is known regarding the influences of different types of trust on IOSs usage. This paper focuses on how trust based on partner competence and trust based on partner openness influence the use of IOS-related resources. Hypotheses are constructed relying on the use of the resource-based view and transaction-cost economics to analyse influences on relationship specificity of four types of IOS-related resources: business processes, human knowledge, organizational domain knowledge and IOS infrastructure. Three case studies are conducted on interorganizational relationships employing IOSs. Competence-trust is found to positively influence the use of human-knowledge resources, resources related to interlinkage of business processes and organizational domain knowledge resources. Openness-trust is found to positively influence use of human-knowledge resources and organizational domain-knowledge resources. European Journal of Information Systems (2009) 18, 223-234. doi: 10.1057/ejis.2009.17; published online 7 July 2009