At March 29, he gave a brown bag research seminar on the topic “Trust and Institutions”, which was well-attended by faculty and PhD students. In his talk, he analysed trust as a means to coordinate interorganizational relationships. It was argued that, depending on institutional environments, trustbased relationships play out in distinct patterns in different business systems. He further showed that institutions have a crucial influence on the form, amount and intensity of trust building processes in inter-organizational relationships and, hence, shape the quality of relationships between organizations. The arguments and supporting empirical examples were drawn on and at the same time informed Systems Theory, Structuration Theory, New Institutionalism, and Political Economy literature.
Beside his interesting talk, Reinhard Bachmann’s visit allowed PhD students to discuss with him their research projects and gain important insights for developing them further. Moreover, his visit opened the possibility to discuss further future research collaboration with University of London.