How Contracts Influence Trust and Distrust
从信息处理理论出发，区分正式合同的协调与控制维度，分析它们如何通过影响信息处理和决策机制，分别促进信任或不信任的发展，并讨论治理选择中的权衡。
Despite the scholarly interest in contracts and trust governing interorganizational relationships, an understanding of how contracts influence trust remains limited by the way in which the interaction between the two constructs is conceptualized. By bringing together recent advances in the literature on interorganizational governance, I consider (a) the controlling and the coordinating dimensions of formal contracts, (b) trust and distrust as two distinct constructs, and (c) both the calculative and noncalculative aspects behind the development of trust and distrust. Drawing upon information-processing theory, I develop a series of propositions about how each contractual dimension influences the development of trust and distrust by inducing specific information-processing and decision-making mechanisms. My theoretical analysis leads me to discuss the trade-offs inherent in governance choices, and I discuss the implications of my propositions for the literature on interorganizational governance mechanisms.