Knowledge, Trust, and Control: Managing Tensions and Contradictions in a Regional Network of Service Firms

Trust is often considered to be a constitutive property of interfirm networks in general and of regional networks of service firms in particular. Although important as a lubricant of interorganizational exchange, trust implies neither the absence of control nor the absence of knowledge. This is especially true in times of reflexive modernity in which agents are forced to monitor activities, relations, and processes more reflexively. Here trust, control, and knowledge often go hand in hand, and each usually requires the existence of the other. However, the relationship of knowledge, trust, and control is not only the medium and result of their more reflexive usage, but it is also characterized by tensions and contradictions. This becomes particularly obvious from a structurationist perspective. This perspective, which focuses on processes of system constitution based on social practices of knowledgeable agents, requires the analysis of any practice, including

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