There is a tendency to see trust and control by formal agreements as substitutes. According to transaction cost economics trust is unreliable, and some form of control is needed to reduce hazards of opportunism. According to others, high trust allows for a limited extent of formal control....

Although there is general agreement in the literature of trust being a transaction-cost efficient means of governance, scholars are far less harmonious as to what trust actually is. This analysis examines and provides clarity to the concept and to the role of trust as a governance mechanism in...