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making in the case of SMEs have not been explored extensively.
Extant literature has focused on various motives of collaborative efforts in the SME
context. Researchers suggest that more often than not, the motives of SMEs to
collaboration develop from inherent obstacles which can be financial, procurement
related, production related, Technological, Marketing related, etc. Some SMEs also
collaborate for cost reduction, sharing business risk, gaining market access; enhance
knowhow, etc. Moreover, some firms pursue collaboration to enhance reputation and
while some others have a purpose to exercise power over smaller partner firms. This
clearly establishes that firms may have multiple motives of collaboration.
Another important aspect of collaboration studies is related to the factors that drive
(enablers) or hinder (inhibitors) collaboration in SMEs. Factors such as trust,
geographical distance between partners, strategic similarities, uncertainty, partner size,
power sharing, resource requirement, etc. play a crucial role in determining whether or
not, SME will consider collaboration with a prospective partner.

Researchers have also extensively investigated trust factor as the most important factor
in collaborations. Trust is found to moderate collaboration decisions. However, there is a
paucity of research on the role of trust on other enablers and inhibitors of collaboration.
Moreover, trust has been found to be a multidimensional construct in studies
investigating interpersonal as well as interorganizational trust.

The above discussions related to motives of collaboration; role of enablers and inhibitors
in collaboration formation and role of trust in collaborations makes it an interesting
investigation opportunity to assess the dynamics of collaboration by SMEs in a
comprehensive manner. To be specific, it is important to assess motives of collaboration
in the SME context, and whether such motives are business domain specific or mixed in
nature. In case SMEs have mixed motives, then a possible conflict of motive agendas
may prevent successful collaboration formation by SMEs. Moreover, it is important to
assess the factors that drive or impede the likelihood of collaboration by SMEs. While
extant literature focuses on enablers and inhibitors of collaboration at a generic level,
there is very limited literature to assess peculiarities of industry specific enablers and
inhibitors. This, combined with the presence of same industry SMEs in geographic
vicinity in the form of business clusters, creates a high probability for SMEs to engage
collaboratively. However, do these SMEs explore or exploit collaboration opportunities
and does size of cluster in terms of number of firms in a cluster impact the tendency to
collaborate? Do the motives of collaboration affect the enablers and inhibitors of
collaboration? What constitutes trust when SMEs are likely to form interorganizational
relationships? Does the composition of trust remain the same when presence of trust

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