Trust and Western-Russian Business Relationships

Chapter 1 Trust in International Joint Ventures

'[T]he urgency remains on the side of encouraging and understanding trust. There is a lot of encouraging going on today. What is lacking, we want to suggest, is understanding'.

(Flores and Solomon, 1998: 224)

Introduction

The aim of the research on which this book is based was to investigate the factors that enhance or decrease interpersonal trust in international joint ventures. It is a cross-cultural study, which looks at relationships between expatriate and Russian management and staff in western-invested enterprises¹ in Russia.² The result is a snapshot of a point in time - the early stages of transition in post-communist Russia - a time when the former Soviet Union was attempting to throw ...