Trust and Collaboration in Interagency Information Technology Projects

This paper presents a model providing a feedback structure that clarifies the nature of the reinforcing processes involved in the development of trust through collaborating in a project. The feedback structure is grounded in data from a project where a prototype system was built, and it is consistent with the literature on trust, collaboration and diffusion of innovation. Four feedback processes are identified at the core of the development of trust and collaboration, two of them reinforcing in nature, and two of them counterbalancing in nature. Experiments with the model suggest that the initiation of a collaborative project with a new partner has the potential to have a slow start because of the lack of knowledge about the other parties. The initiation of the collaboration could be accelerated by shaping expectations of benefits of the project or by reducing the perception of risk associated with the project.