Managing Trust in a Global Network

1
Managing Trust in a Global Network

• Maria Beebe
• Center to Bridge the Digital Divide
• Washington State University

2
Outline

• Conceptual underpinning of Networks and Trust
• Background, Context and Disclaimer
• Manifestations of trust or lack of trust in
  NetTel
• Implications for Leadership

3
Partnerships

• Relationships that provide opportunities for
  mutual benefit and results beyond what any single
  organization or sector could realize along
  (Drucker Foundation, 2002 )

4
5 Characteristics of Successful Networks

• Shared Vision and Trust
• Independent Members
• Voluntary Links
• Multiple Leaders
• Clearly Defined Roles
• - Lipnack and Stamp (2002)

5
Requirements for Successful Networking

• Building Trust
• Being a Co-Equal Partner
• Willingness to Function with Open Decision Making
  Processes
• Engagement in Collaborative Problem-Solving
• - Kamensky (2002)

6
What is Trust?

• The reliance on a property or a virtue of a
  person, or the conviction that a given premise is
  true (Oxford Dictionary)
• The properties of a person that one is willing to
  believe -- reliability, honesty, worthiness, and
  capability (Modern Greek Dictionary)

7
Organizational Trust Inventory

• Belief that another individual or group
• "makes good-faith efforts" to honor commitments
  both explicit and implicit
• is honest in negotiations that preceded those
  commitments
• does not take excessive advantage of another
  even when such an opportunity to do so exists.
• - Cummings and Bromiley (1996)

8
Difference between Trust and Trustworthiness

• Trust is a willingness to be vulnerable to the
  actions of another party
• Trustworthiness is a judgment about the other
  partys
• Competence
• Benevolence
• Integrity
• -Mayer et al (1995)

9
NetTel

• NetTel is a transnational network for capacity
  building and knowledge sharing in ICT and
  telecommunications policy, regulation, and
  applications.
• The overall goal of NetTel is to make the
  provision of ICT more efficient and ubiquitous to
  all African citizens.
• Achieving this goal requires improved policy and
  regulation as well as increased private sector
  investment.

10
E-Learning

• The effective teaching and learning process
  combined with digital content and local tutor and
  community support along with global community
  engagement.

11
Transnational Interdisciplinary

• Botswana, Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, Uganda,
  United States, Uganda
• Computer Science, Finance and Economics,
  Engineering, Communications and Social Science

12
What People Say to Convey Trust

• Together we can do this.
• I know you will not let me down.
• I know I can rely on you.
• I trust we will all do the right thing.
• She knows what she is talking about and admits it
  when she doesnt

13
What People Say to Convey Distrust

• They are letting me down
• I am not sure they have the best interest of the
  network
• They do not do what they say they will do
• They are cutting me out of the decision-making
• They are only interested in their own program

14
Attempts to Mend Broken Trust

• I was not clear about my expectations
• Its great to see I am not the only one suffering
• How can we make this work
• I am beginning to understand what is going on,
  here is what I can do

15
NetTel Coordinators Source of Trustworthiness

• Personal traits of the individuals adopting them,
  like attributed competence and motives
• Role-based trust, a form of depersonalized trust
  because it is predicated on knowledge that a
  person occupies a particular role
• - Kramer (1999)

16
The NetTel Coordinators Dilemma

• Managing third-party expressions of distrust
• What to do with the information?
• To whom to convey?
• How can trust be mended or sustained?

17
The NetTel Coordinators Role

• To nurture trust-enhancing behavior through
  continuous sharing of relevant information
• Clarification of mutual expectations
• Facilitating the meeting of expectations
• Enabling mutual influence

18
Three Implications for Leadership in a Networked
World

• How best to use information communication
  technologies to approximate face to face
  interaction

19
Three Implications for Leadership in a Networked
World

• How best to nurture the network so that it will
  evolve toward a state of balance in which people
  are bound by strong relationships as well as have
  similar judgment of trustworthiness of others

20
Three Implications for Leadership in a Networked
World

• How best to translate trustworthiness in network
  partners to trustworthiness of web applications
  developed by the network partners, such as the
  online learning management system not just for
  content management but also for reliability of
  online assessment