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motive influences presence of trust, power sharing and different risk acceptance levels as
factors impacting collaboration. Whereas the motive of Cost and Risk Reduction is found
to influence large partner size and resource inadequacy as factors impacting
collaboration.
The results of the study also empirically identify trust in SME collaborations as
Composite Trust – which involves trust at interpersonal as well as interorganizational
level. This finding supports existing literature which highlights the impact of interpersonal
trust on interorganizational trust in the SME context. SMEs are also found to assess trust,
both - favourably and unfavourably, predominantly with dependability dimension of trust.
Additionally, SMEs tend to be influenced with affect when presence of trust enables
collaboration. Finally, the study reveals that composite nature of trust moderates the
relationship between presence of trust and power balance as enablers. Also, composite
trust is found to moderate the relationship between and lack of trust as inhibitor with
Smaller Partner Firm; Uncertainty and Difference in Risk Propensity as inhibitors. This
result is supplementary to extant literature.
Keywords: SMEs; Collaboration; Motives; Enablers and Inhibitors; Trust
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