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Interorganizational Trust in Business Relations: Cooperation and Coopetition

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Contemporary Challenges in Cooperation and Coopetition in the Age of Industry 4.0

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Abstract

This study aims to answer the question: How level and character of interorganizational trust in different groups of partners influences a firm’s collaboration expressed by cooperation and coopetition. The literature suggests many factors determining the interorganizational trust, but our results, based on research conducted in 53 companies operating in Poland, grouped them into three different variables: the level of trust in a particular group of partners from the value network, the general trust in a potential partner, and the general trust in collaboration. Our findings also show that if the level of trust in a particular group of partners (i.e., suppliers, customers, other non-competitive partners) increases, the partnership cooperation with particular group is greater, and similarly if the level of trust in competitors increases, the inclination to coopetition is greater. Moreover, the other variables of interorganizational trust are not significant in this context.

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Acknowledgements

This research was funded by the National Science Centre in Poland (Grant number UMO-2015/17/B/HS4/00982).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. AGH University of Science and Technology, Cracow, Poland

    Dagmara Lewicka

  2. Lodz University of Technology, Lodz, Poland

    Agnieszka Zakrzewska-Bielawska

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  1. Dagmara Lewicka
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Correspondence to Agnieszka Zakrzewska-Bielawska .

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  1. Department of Management, Lodz University of Technology, Łódź, Poland

    Agnieszka Zakrzewska-Bielawska

  2. Department of Management, Lodz University of Technology, Łódź, Poland

    Iwona Staniec

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Lewicka, D., Zakrzewska-Bielawska, A. (2020). Interorganizational Trust in Business Relations: Cooperation and Coopetition. In: Zakrzewska-Bielawska, A., Staniec, I. (eds) Contemporary Challenges in Cooperation and Coopetition in the Age of Industry 4.0. Springer Proceedings in Business and Economics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30549-9_8

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