Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
European Urban and Regional Studies
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow References
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in Web of Science
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Nuissl, H.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

Trust in a ‘Post-Socialist Region’

A Study of East German ICT Entrepreneurs’ Willingness to Trust Each Other

Henning Nuissl

UFZ Centre for Environmental Research, Germany, henning.nuissl{at}ufz.de

As trust is essential for close mutual cooperation, trust between entrepreneurs running SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) has been increasingly acknowledged as an important factor in regional economic development. However, one of the main problems of post-socialist economies is that the increased need for entrepreneurial trust is thwarted by conditions discouraging the creation of trust. In order to investigate this problem, an empirical study was carried out among ICT entrepreneurs in eastern Germany to examine the main aspects of trust identified in the recent literature on SMEs and entrepreneurship. The findings revealed that although barriers impeding the emergence of inter-entrepreneurial trust do not necessarily exist in a lagging, transforming region such as eastern Germany, its development may prove more difficult than elsewhere. Problems can be attributed to ‘legacies of socialism’ in the knowledge patterns of ‘post-socialist entrepreneurs’ and, more importantly, their perception of a general lack of market power. However, actual problems of building entrepreneurial trust can usually be resolved by careful reflection on the part of those concerned.

Key Words: qualitative content analysis • SME cooperation • trust

European Urban and Regional Studies, Vol. 12, No. 1, 65-81 (2005)
DOI: 10.1177/0969776405046263
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?