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that the other has different values and so should not be trusted. This is because
it is easier to assume trust than distrust. Over time, as one becomes more confi-
dent that the other person shares one’s values, this trust will be converted into
unconditional trust. Unconditional trust, they argue, is more enduring and is
the basis for the development of synergistic relationships, which can lead to
increased knowledge creation and superior performance. In other words, Jones
and George (1998) argue that unconditional trust leads to more effective coop-
erative behaviour than does conditional trust.
Other research has focused on trust-building when there is a time pressure.
Meyerson et al. (1996), for example, argue that in temporary groups working
on short-lived complex tasks that require the specialist skills of relative strangers
(the essential characteristics of much project work in organizations), trust needs
to form very quickly if the group is to make any progress at all. They suggest that
this ‘swift trust’ has unusual properties in that its development is driven more by
contextual cues than by personalities or interpersonal relations. Thus swift trust
is a pragmatic strategy for getting on with the job at hand involving ‘artful mak-
ing do with a modest set of general cues from which inferences are drawn about
how people might care for what we entrust to them’ (p. 191), The concept of
swift trust is particularly useful in relation to knowledge-creating collaborative
contexts. In many cases those involved in the projects, put together in order to
share knowledge and develop new products or processes, have never worked
together before. At the same time they often have very tight deadlines – just the
situation where ‘wading in on trust’ may be more likely and indeed necessary.
Drawing these different ideas about trust together, a threefold typology is
presented below. This typology pulls together the typologies that already exist
in the literature.
Companion trust: This refers to trust that is based on judgements of goodwill
or personal friendships. The trust rests on a moral foundation that others will
behave in a way that does not harm other members of the network. The parties
will expect each other to be open and honest. Such trust will be process-based
in that it will develop over time as people get to know each other personally
(and possibly become friends) through continuing, reciprocal exchange. This
trust should be slow-forming and resilient. It has a strong emotional compo-
nent and is important for the maintenance of social networks. Partners should
be relatively tolerant of others’ (well-intentioned) mistakes. However, if eventu-
ally broken, this trust is also likely to cause the greatest rift between the parties
involved.
Competence trust: This trust is based on perceptions of the others’ compe-
tence to carry out the tasks that need to be performed and will be important
where the skills needed to perform a task are not able to be found within one
person. In other words competence trust is based on an attitude of respect
for the abilities of the trustee to complete their share of the job at hand. The
truster feels that they can rely on the trustee. The development of this form of
trust thus relies on perceiving the competences of the other partners. This may
not necessarily need to occur through interpersonal exchange – competence

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