The role of trust-based ties in entrepreneurship

Abstract

This thesis focuses on the importance of trust-based connections in entrepreneurship in developing economy in East Asia, Africa and Latin America. It is made up of three separate articles, each with a different focus. The first article explores unique relationship between trust-based ties and constructive behaviour that might be beneficial to businesses, which is to my knowledge, currently lack meta-analytic study particularly comprises inter-organizational trust-based linkages. The second article explains the relationship between trust (as a social capital) with entrepreneurial activity and economic growth from the macro perspectives, using panel data analysis. Finally, to cater from the micro perspective, the third article examines the role of trust-based ties and perceived environmental dynamism in EO-performance relationship, with sample taken from service sector in Malaysia.
In general, this thesis finds empirical support for the hypothesis “trust-based ties matter for business growth”. The first article finds evidence that trust between organization do support information sharing and commitment in B2B relationship, which ultimately positively associated with business performance. Furthermore, the good of trust ties seem to be lesser for firm that operate in highly hostile and low dynamic environment. At the macro level, the second article shows that the generalized trust variable is not suitable in panel analysis. Furthermore, the broad definition of total entrepreneurial activity variable from GEM might be suitable to be examined in microeconomic level rather than in macroeconomic setting as the study not able to differentiate between these different roles of entrepreneurs. At the micro level, the third article demonstrates that inter-organizational cognitive trust moderates the effect of EO on firm performance. Additionally, this article discovered that environmental dynamism moderates the combined effect of EO and inter-organizational trust on company performance.

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ORCID for Tapas Mishra: orcid.org/0000-0002-6902-2326

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