Effects of decision synchronization on trust in collaborative networks

Abstract

In collaborative networks, individual and organizational entities encounter many disagreements over many decisions rights. These disagreements procreate conflicting preferences, which in turn, affect trustworthy amongst partners. To that end, it becomes necessary that partners assume a degree of fairness on decision rights by calibrating positions which they initially consider a final. This calibration involves synchronizing partners’ conflicting preferences to a compromise. The objective of this paper, therefore, is to analyze and evaluate the effect of both, compromised and uncompromised preferences on trust. To achieve this, a corresponding behavioral trust model is proposed and evaluated empirically using a logistics collaboration scenario. This evaluation applies a multi-agent systems simulation method. The simulation involves 360 observations with three preferences set as predictor variables. Results show that irrespective of a degree to which conflicting preferences are synchronized, a magnitude of the generated effect on trust, depends as well on other factors like transport cost and extent to which vehicles are loaded. Additionally, if other factors are kept constant, compromised preferences affects trust more positively than uncompromised ones.