Trust and control building in evolving inter-organisational relationships: Evidence from the aerospace industry

When?

Monday 9 July 2012, 13:00

Where?

14MS01, Surrey Business School

Open to:

Public, Staff, Students

Speaker:

Dr Evangelia Varoutsa, University of Surrey

Biography

Evangelia graduated with a BSc in Business Administration from the Athens University of Business and Economics. She holds an MSc in Accounting and Finance from the University of Manchester (Manchester Business School) and a PhD in Accounting from the same university. Before joining Surrey in September 2009, Evangelia worked as a Seminar Leader at the University of Manchester for several undergraduate courses.

Abstract

This paper seeks to analyse the effects of trust in the control of inter-organisational relationships. The paper seeks a better understanding of the relationship between trust and control structures by investigating the relationship among different phases of evolution and maturity over time and it provides evidence of what shifted the changes. It reports on an aero manufacturing company during the restructuring of its supply chain and explores the governance of inter-organisational relationships during different supply chain maturity phases; moving from arm-length relationships to supply chain collaboration. In the paper we discuss the relationship between trust and control in each maturity phase and discuss its evolution as collaboration increases. We develop propositions from the existing literature with which we seek to interpret our case findings and explain the changes in the supply chain. Finally, the paper draws on a model by van der Meer-Kooistra and Vosselman [Acc. Organ. Society 25 (2000) 51] to examine how control mechanisms and trust interact over time. We explore the movement from one control pattern to the other because of the establishment of trust. Our contribution is that the model becomes processual rather than comparable static.  

All welcome.