The Development of Inter-Firm Trust: Cases from the Animation Game Industry

Nowadays, technology has played important role in the society and even shaped the way business operates. However, there is also an awareness of the “soft sides” of business, among which is the inter-firm trust. This is particularly observed in the animation game industry where increasingly more internationalization and inter-firm collaboration takes place. Such topics as “how to select a trust-worthy partner”, “how to continuously maintain good relationships with collaborators” are of great value for both academic studies and business practice. This paper explores the inter-firm trust issues in business collaboration. It creates a trust development process model together with an evaluation system. From literature review, the questions of “how inter-firm trust is developed”, and “what the constructing components of trust are” need further investigation. With a theory building approach, a conceptual framework consisting of the dominating concepts – values of trust, and process of trust – are developed. Case studies into animation game industry in China, UK, USA and Japan are carried out to illustrate key issues of inter-firm trust, covering the crucial relationship between OEMs and outsource studios/operators/character manufacturers. Prioritized values are summarized from interviews and observations, which are further developed into trust dimensions. The main findings are: 16 dimensions to assess three basic types of trust – competence trust, reliability trust and goodwill trust; a 3-stage process model of trust with details of decision making areas –trust formation, trust development and trust continuation. Future research should seek to validate and improve the above models, along with a further linkage between trust and different national culture contexts.