Trust and social capital in the virtual organization

Abstract

We argue that in virtual organizations trust and social capital are the bases for successful cooperation and that elements of trust theories developed in the offline work environment, at the micro-sociological level, can be used to explain cooperation in the virtual organization, but the proportions in which these elements matter are different than in the offline environment. Competence matters in the evaluation of the degree in which one can trust a virtual partner to do his job correctly, but this not sufficient and familiarity with that person, found in the social relationship, is more important for a successful cooperation. To demonstrate this we conducted a case study using a comparative approach between members of a virtual organization and of different non-virtual organizations.