Knowledge and Trust

Since the sense of shared identity of people is limited, the foundations for the existence of trust are relaticely weak. The level of trust and mutual understanding between individuals who do not mormally work together and who are not members of the same team may restrain the sharing and collective utilization of knowledge. Trust is very important in knowledge sharing and other social contexts, and the contexts of trust is complex. Development of trust is crucial and is one of the main ways to help knowledge processes to develop in intercommunity work context. Below are some types of trust.

Type of trust                   Description of trust

Process bases                 Based on experience, and built up over time

Characteristic based       Based on social similarities and cultural congruence

Institutional bases           Trust based on institutional or professional reputation, NOT interpersonal familiarity

Calculative                       Trust based on some form of calculation regarding costs/benefits

Norm/value based            Trust based on common social values

Cognitive expectation based     Trust based on common expectations of future events, and/or patterns of behavior

Companion                     Trust based on judgements of goodwill of friendship, built up over time

Competence                   Trust based on perception of others competence to carry out relevant tasks

Commitment                   Trust stemming from contractual obligations

: 27 Apr 2009 07:46 |  Tags: Kbam |  Comments (0) |  Report a problem