Sustaining Trust Within Family Businesses

Trust, a competitive advantage for family businesses in the early stages, often deteriorates as the firm grows, putting it under considerable risk. While sustaining trust within family businesses is a critical topic, we have limited understanding of this issue. Yet, the trust research within the organizational sciences provides considerable insight on this topic. Therefore, in this paper a model of sustaining trust is presented based on an integration of this trust literature with the family business literature. The basic premise of the model is that trust is dynamic and multiple dimensions of trust need to be developed through structures and processes to sustain interpersonal trust inherent in the early stages. Implications of the model and future research directions are outlined.