The IMP group's ARA model, with its emphasis on interaction, captures social and economic dimensions of exchanges. We draw on it to compare three cases and assess how actors act in skilful and nuanced ways in mobilizing resources, given the very different norms of social and economic capital. We prioritize action ahead of structure and, given the inherent uncertainties that actors encounter in connection with resources, argue that trust is a cognitive and heuristic dimension of action, distinct from resources, actor-bonds and social capital. We conclude that for business practice, managers should be mindful that in order to trust others, they need to act in the distinct realms of social and economic capital, tempting though it is to interpret and measure the costs of actions economically.
In this paper, we follow a path that IMP researchers (Araujo & Easton, 1999, Bowey & Easton, 2007 and Batt, 2008) have established in investigating the intersections and synergies between the actor-resource-activity (ARA) model (Håkansson & Johanson, 1992, Håkansson & Snehota, 1995, Harrison & Prenkert, 2009 and Lenney & Easton, 2009) and the concept of social capital (Bourdieu, 1986, Nahapiet & Ghoshal, 1998 and Adler & Kwon, 2002). Our contribution is to propose that the intersection of ARA and social capital, characterized by actors mobilizing resources, is through their activities intensified by developing trust, which we understand to be both cognitive and heuristic (Ford, et al., 2010).
We address three questions, of how actors: (1) acquire resources in and from radically different settings, in pursuing business activities; (2) develop and draw upon trust in connection with their attempts to mobilize – especially intangible – resources; and (3) change the social and economic capitals associated with their business contexts, for instance as an extension or intensification of actors' bonds, as they go about trusting others and assessing the trustworthiness of others. IMP researchers have long established that actors depend on one another for a significant proportion of the resources required for their business activities and that resources are inherently uncertain and complex entities to exchange, often revealing their qualities in use (Håkansson & Waluszewski, 2002, Gadde et al., 2003, Harrison & Waluszewski, 2008 and Baraldi & Strömsten, 2009). As such, exchanges of resources are typically interactive and relational rather than transactional (Håkansson & Ford, 2002, Harrison, 2004 and Ford & Håkansson, 2006).
We present and analyse three contrasting cases drawn from a project on ‘doing business networking’, in which actors have recognized that trust is important as they seek to mobilize resources in settings that have complex social and economic features. In Section 2 we examine the similarities and differences between the ARA model, social capital and trust, all understood from the perspective of action and interaction, ahead of but not to the exclusion of a structural perspective. We explain our research design in Section 3 and present our three cases in Section 4. In Section 5, we compare and contrast our cases, showing how, from a perspective of action, actors experience vulnerability and trust as they seek to mobilize resources. Section 6 concludes.
Bowey and Easton (2007, p. 277) combined the IMP group's ARA model with social capital and investigated entrepreneurship given Ring's (1997) construct of ‘resilient trust’. We differ by focusing on action and so investigating how actors recognize that they become vulnerable especially in making exchanges of resources, which are of strategic importance. Hence, Ring's (1997) category of ‘fragile trust’ has a greater resonance for us, given the qualities of exchanging resources. Furthermore, where actors recognize and to some extent voluntarily make themselves vulnerable, given some overall business plan or strategy, this is congruent with their ways of coping, their heuristics being additional activities (Uzzi, 1997 and McEvily et al., 2003). The vulnerability has at least two sources: the uncertainties over the qualities of a resource being mobilized, and of counterparts in an exchange being committed and capable of attending to that activity over time. Finally, calculation and non-calculation loom large, as sets of managerial practices in business contexts. The ARA model, and in particular, its characterization of resources, is socio-economic, combing dimensions and components associated with both economic and social capital (Bourdieu, 1986). Where resources are mobilized, the additions of social economic capital as concepts, leads us to concentrate on how actors translate resources between settings which vary in the extent to which their norms and customs are in the framing of social or economic capital.
