Control mechanisms and trust between complementary and substitutive effect. An empirical investigation on international strategic alliance

The aim of this article is to deepen the understanding of the complexity of trust-control relationship in international alliances, testing whether trust and control operate as complements or as substitutes. The aim is also to verify the positively effect of trust on alliance performance. First, we focus on the impact of control mechanisms – output control, process control, and social control – on trust. Then, we analyze the impact of trust on alliance performance. We test the research hypotheses on a sample of 142 international strategic alliances; our findings show that control’s effects on trust can change depending of the kind of control mechanisms. Consistent with the notion of complementary effect, we find that output control and social control have a positive impact on trust level, while process control negatively impacts trust, in line with substitutive effect theories. Finally, we identify that trust has a positive effect on alliance performance.