Trust building processes in women’s entrepreneurship

• Purpose – Social capital is perceived as an important driver for entrepreneurship. To support development of social capital in women's entrepreneurship, the Swedish government supports development projects with the aim of stimulating business growth. Recent studies show that trust is an essential ingredient when designing such projects. The purpose of this paper is to further develop a theoretical model of trust-building processes by developing and trying out questions regarding trust elements and to study how projects have addressed these various trust-building elements. Design/methodology/approach – An exploratory approach was used, and a survey was conducted. A questionnaire about trust was sent to the project leaders of all 165 development projects in a Swedish government-funded programme with a response rate of 73 per cent. The data were analysed in SPSS. Findings – The results show that contextual and relational aspects should be taken into account in the trust model, and that some of the questions regarding trust elements need to be elaborated more. Originality/value – This paper further develops the construction of a proposed theoretical model of trust-building processes.

Nyckelord

Development programmes; Development projects

Relationships

Social capital

Trust

Women entrepreneurs

Publikations- och innehållstyp

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