Firsthand Experience and The Subsequent Role of Reflected Knowledge in Cultivating Trust in Global Collaboration
Year: 2009
Type: report
Abstract: While scholars contend that firsthand experience - time spent onsite observing the people, places, and norms of a distant locale - is crucial in globally distributed collaboration, how such experience actually affects interpersonal dynamics is poorly understood. Based on 47 semistructured interviews and 140 survey responses in a global chemical company, this paper explores the effects of firsthand experience on intersite trust. We find firsthand experience leads not just to direct knowledge of the other, but also knowledge of the self as seen through the eyes of the other - what we call “reflected knowledge”. Reflected and direct knowledge, in turn, affect trust through identification, adaptation, and reduced misunderstandings.
Authors: Mark Mortensen, Tsedal Beyene
Institutions: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University
Language: English
Subfield: Social Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1567811108