ENGINEERING THE EVOLUTION OF ORGANIZATIONAL TRUST IN OPERATING VIRTUAL ORGANIZATION

Problem Statement: This article addresses the evolution and dynamism of trustworthiness of organizations that are collaborating in a temporary business consortium which is referred to as a virtual organization. Traditionally, the trustworthiness of organizations has been being assessed during the launching of the virtual organization and it was assumed to remain static. Practices have shown that the trustworthiness of organizations changes during the course of collaboration and may increase or decrease due to changes of work performance and achievements. However, mechanism for assessing the evolution of trustworthiness has been missing and this article aims at filling this gap. The problem description and background is covered in sections 1 and 2. Methodology: Based on our existing work on assessment of base level of trust in organization and existing literature on trust assessment we have developed three models for assessment of evolution of organizational trustworthiness with time during the collaboration period. The models shall be implemented to provide computer software for semi-automated assessment of evolving trustworthiness. The methodology used to come-up with the bases for presenting our results is described in Section 3. Results: This article has proposed three types of models that are implementable to provide mechanisms for developing semi-automated services to assess the evolution of trustworthiness during collaboration. The results of our research which constitutes our contribution to science domain are presented in Section 4. Conclusions: Trustworthiness of organizations changes with time and thus does not remain static or uniform with time. The changes are influenced by variation of performance and achievements of those organizations in the activities involved in collaboration with other organizations. However, approaches for assessing the evolution of trustworthiness have been missing and thus sustainability of trust in organizations has been difficult to manage during the collaboration period. The paper has proposed three mechanisms for assessing the evolution of trustworthiness that contribute to the management of the sustainability of trust