The Role of Trust in Building Collaborative Culture

Abstract

Studies on collaboration acknowledge the role of culture in building a collaborative organization yet rarely look for more than one relationship among the organizational factors and are unidirectional in perspective. This paper examines the evidence on building a collaborative culture. The purpose is to identify the organizational factors that influence collaboration in U.S.-based corporations. This study analyzes several factors that influence the building of a collaborative culture, including the company culture, leadership, trust, knowledge management, and structure; using an evidence-based research synthesis approach and analysis of 27 studies. The relationships between these factors indicate the facilitators of and barriers to collaboration and factors that allow collaboration to thrive or fail. The results of this study indicate that organizational trust has a more significant influence than is acknowledged in the building of collaborative culture. Finally, salient gaps in the research are identified and implications for future research and practice are discussed.