Abstract
Online collaboration to deal with (global) environmental and public health problems continues to grow as the quality of technology for communication improves. In these collaborations, trust is seen as important for sustainable collaborations and organizations. However, face-to-face communication, which is often lacking in these contexts, is seen as a pre-requisite for trust development. Therefore, this paper aims to explore empirically which factors influence the emergence of trust in the early stages of online collaboration. Using the relevant literature, we conducted a series of interviews around projects in the field of public health and the environment on the interface between science and practice. The results show that trust does develop between participants. This trust is strongly influenced by perceived ability and integrity, fostered by reputation, third-party perceptions, and project structure. In these contexts, these types of trust facilitate collaboration but are also influenced by a wider set of aspects such as power, expectations, and uncertainty. However, from the results we also conclude that online collaboration does not create benevolence and a shared identity, thereby limiting further trust development and leading to less strong relations. Strong relations, however, are deemed important to reach creative and innovative solutions and long-term sustainable collaboration and organizations.
Highlights
Many of the world’s most challenging environmental and public health problems cross national borders and disciplinary divisions and require experts from both practice and science [1,2,3]
That is how I begin, and it must take a lot, almost, to think: Ho . . . something is not right.”. Another stated: “I assume that everyone gets out of bed in the morning and thinks: ‘I will act conscientiously...’ well maybe not consciously thinking that but . . . I don’t assume people get up in the morning and think: ‘look who I can deceive’.”. These quotes reveal the general feeling of trustworthiness towards the collaboration partners that we encountered among the participants at the beginning of projects
We posed the question: which factors influence the development of trust in early stages of online collaboration? Exploring this question through in-depth interviews, discussing the experiences of our interviewees in projects we found several interesting insights for analytical discussion and future studies both more in-depth as well as studies allowing for empirical generalization
Summary
Many of the world’s most challenging environmental and public health problems (such as climate change, loss of biodiversity, and the invasion of pests) cross national borders and disciplinary divisions and require experts from both practice and science [1,2,3] Because of this international, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary character, (global) public health and environmental problems are transboundary in nature and complex to deal with, as they challenge organizations and institutions to work with people who are best suited for the job irrespective of their geographical location [4]. To facilitate collaboration between partners in geographically dispersed settings, online collaboration is seen as vital [5] These developments take place in the broader development of an increasing role for online communication for environmental conservation and improving public health, such as digital conservation, Nature 2.0, and e-health [6,7]. In the remainder of this paper, we use the term online collaboration for this, by which we mean any communication online in text, visual or vocal
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