Conclusion: Trust as Process

Abstract

This book has examined the nature and effect of interpersonal trust in the small-business setting of the entrepreneurial venture. Following a literature review of trust as it is considered in management and organisation literature, it emphasised the importance of interpersonal situational trust development in social exchange and derived a conceptualisation of it as a subjective tacit knowledge which is used by individuals to fill gaps in their more explicit knowledge pertaining to a particular situation, reducing the complexity of the situation, and thereby facilitating interaction (Chapter 1). It then considered a number of metatheoretical implications for the conduct of empirical study into the phenomenon, considering the need to adopt a processual metaphysic and an epistemological position which enabled the adoption of an interpretivist approach, and establishing the principle of demonstrable applicability (Chapter 2).

What I am objecting to is the absurd trust in the adequacy of our knowledge.

The self-confidence of learned people is the comic tragedy of civilisation.

Alfred North Whitehead ([1941], 1991)