Trust

Trust and the success of a collaboration

Many academic and industry writers in the field of alliances argue that trust is one of the most important factors, or even the only important factor, in determining the success or otherwise of an alliance.

We decided to test this proposition by measuring the correlation between the respondent's perception of the trustworthiness of the partner and the respondent's perception of the success of the collaboration captured in all surveys undertaken by Silico Research on behalf of clients in the over the past few years and where the two questions appear in the same survey.

We found that there is no particularly strong correlation between the respondent's perception of the trustworthiness of the partner and the respondent's perception of the success of the collaboration compared to other factors covered by the survey. Instead there is a weak positive correlation of 0.41 between the success of the collaboration and trust.

Other factors covered by the survey have a greater correlation with the success of the collaboration than trust. These factors include the partner having an effective problem-solving and 'can-do' culture.

• Silico Research 2024©