Trust and Objects: Trust Building Capacities of Objects in Interorganizational Collaboration

Abstract

Research has focused on the individual dispositions of trust and the interpersonal trust relations among boundary spanners, paying little attention to the role objects play in trust building in inter-organizational collaboration processes. This work explores the dynamic relation between trust and digital objects in inter-organizational collaboration. A longitudinal study of an innovative tele-home monitoring service involving health professionals from hospitals, municipalities, and general practice clinics forms the empirical context. This study demonstrates that trust is not exclusively a human feature but also a dimension of digital objects since such objects mediate and build trust among actors by enabling focused communication and shared knowledge, improving predictability and transparency in behavior and decision making, and creating visibility of work contexts and tasks. In this paper, these three features denote objects’ trust-building capacities, which support shared problem-solving and collaboration. The study, however, also shows a flip side, since digital objects may cause mistrust and thereby act as barriers to collaboration. Overall, these insights contribute to the literature about trust in inter-organizational collaboration processes by foregrounding the role of objects in trust-building processes and exploring their trust-building capacities.