Continuous requirements management for organisation networks: a (dis)trust-based approach

Recently, viewpoint resolution methods which make conflicts productive for requirements engineering have gained popularity in organisational information systems. However, when extending such methods beyond organisational boundaries to inter-organisational social networks, sociological research indicates that a delicate balance of trust in individuals, confidence in the network as a whole, and watchful distrust becomes a key success factor. We capture these relationships in the so-called TCD (Trust–Confidence–Distrust) approach and demonstrate how this approach can be supported by a dynamic requirements engineering environment that combines the structural analysis of strategic dependencies and rationales, with the interaction between planning, tracing, and communicative action. An example drawn from an ongoing case study in entrepreneurship networks illustrates our approach, complemented by a brief sketch of a prototypical implementation of a simulation environment based on our methodology.