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Dear everyone,

With this letter we would like to call for your participation in our caucus on "Value of trust in entrepreneurship development: institutional and interpersonal perspectives".

If you are interested in attending our caucus, please email us your name and contact information so that we can prepare a list of participants.

Please find below the information pertinent to this caucus

1. Abstract: This caucus seeks to achieve two objectives. The first one is to develop a network of intellectuals who are interested in or currently engaged in researching the relationship between trust and entrepreneurship from institutional and interpersonal perspectives. The second objective is to seek potential contributions for a special issue for a scholarly journal. We hope that participants will find research collaboration opportunities and form a platform for exchanging ideas and developing this branch of research.

2. Organizers: Mai Thi Thanh Thai and Ekaterina Turkina from HEC Montreal, Canada

3. Time and venue: TBA

4. Publication opportunities: The editor-in-chief of Journal of International Business and Entrepreneurship Development has expressed his interest in sponsoring a special issue for the outcome of this caucus.

5. Short description of the caucus

Entrepreneurship is one of the most important forces shaping the changes in the economic landscape (Baumol, 1968). Entrepreneurship literature with regional, industry, and country empirical evidence demonstrated that entrepreneurship plays a vital role in economic growth and labor demand (Praag & Ophem, 1995; Carree & Thurik, 2010; Thurik, Wennekers, & Uhlaner, 2002). Therefore, it is important to understand what factors drive entrepreneurship, especially the one with positive contributions to the society. To date, very little research has delved into examining the influence of social-psychological factors in general and trust in particular. Nevertheless, interpersonal and institutional trust have been found to be critical for a wide variety of social relationships to develop and for economy to grow since transactions costs are low in instances of mutual trust (Fukuyama, 1995). Interpersonal trust enhances collaboration, mutual supportiveness, shared norms and values and represents a 'synthetic force within society' (Simmel, 1950: 326).  Additionally, interpersonal trust allows high tolerance of uncertainty and risk-taking (Newton, 1999: 4), which should be important for entrepreneurship. At the same time, institutional trust (Paxton, 1999) has been found to have a significant impact on economic development and economic growth (Zaheer and Venkatraman, 1995). Therefore, it is important to explore different aspects of institutional and interpersonal trust in relation to entrepreneurship.

This caucus seeks to achieve two objectives. The first one is to develop a network of intellectuals who are interested in or currently engaged in researching the relationship between trust and entrepreneurship from institutional and interpersonal perspectives. The second objective is to seek potential contributions for a special issue at a journal. We hope that participants will find research collaboration opportunities and form a platform for exchanging ideas and developing this branch of research.

Part 1: Pre-caucus activity

Participants send us list of research topics they wish to publish/see in the special issue

Part 2: Research round table discussion at AOM

Section 1: The concept of trust from institutional and interpersonal perspectives   30 min

Section 2: The role of trust on entrepreneurship development                        30 min

Section 3: Identification of key research questions for the special issue           30 min

Part 3: Networking event after AOM caucus

Dinner or coffee session after the official session at AOM

Part 4: Development of papers in the topics discussed

If you have any question or suggestion, please do not hesitate to contact us at mai.thai@hec.ca or ekaterina.turkina@hec.ca. We will be happy to be of your assistance.

We would like to thank you for your consideration and look forward to hearing from you.

Best regards,

Mai Thai, M.B.A., Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

Department of International Business, HEC Montréal 3000, chemin de la Côte-Sainte-Catherine, Montréal (Québec), H3T 2A7, Canada

Tel: (+1) (514) 340-6188; Cell: (+1) (514) 627 1569; Fax: (+1) (514) 340-6987;

Email: mai.thai@hec.ca; Webpage: www.hec.ca/en/profs/mai-thi-thanh.thai.html