Trust and Control in Strategic Networks: An Empirical Analysis on a Sample of Italian SMEs' Networks

The aim of this paper is to contribute to the analysis of the role of trust and control in interorganizational relationships and of the effect that trust and control – both jointly and separately – have on the strategic network performance. Specifically, we address thequestions of: whether and to what extent the level of trust among entrepreneurs increases the performance of a network; whether the presence of control mechanisms reinforces such performance; and whether there is an interaction effect between trust and control, in terms of a relationship of either complementarity or substitutability, which affects the performance of the network. Additionally, to shed light on the interplay between trust and control in terms of complementarity or substitutability, we unpack the mechanisms of control into three different forms: output control, process control and social control