Collaborative research programmes: building trust from difference

Abstract

Many technology policies support collaborative research, particularly involving small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), in the hope such projects will 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 research 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 establishment 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 institutions. Contractual and competence trusts were facilitated by the TBG application procedures. Cultural differences were found to have some positive impacts on the development of competence trust. However, in general, goodwill trust evolves only if repeat collaborative relationships occur. It is proposed, therefore, that a hierarchy of policy mechanisms could provide the platform for research partners to progressively develop a goodwill trust based relationship that will endure beyond the support of the intermediary programme.