Trust across borders: a review of the research on interorganizational trust in international business

Abstract

Trust between organizations has been recognized as crucial in international business (IB) and has attracted extensive research attention. Researchers have conceptualized and measured interorganizational trust in multiple ways, investigated numerous determinants and outcomes of interorganizational trust, and explored interorganizational trust in several types of international relationships across a range of country combinations using varied research methodologies. Our review aims to consolidate and advance this literature by focusing on (i) how interorganizational trust has been conceptualized in IB; (ii) how interorganizational trust has been operationalized in IB; (iii) what factors promote or hinder interorganizational trust in IB; (iv) what the outcomes are of interorganizational trust in IB; and (v) how interorganizational trust has been studied in IB. For each question, we analyze the literature and then provide recommendations and directions for future research. We aim to provide a solid grounding for future research that will keep this area theoretically sound, empirically robust, and phenomenologically relevant.