چکیده : 

This paper reports on the results of a case study that examines the effect of the contract

and accounting on inter-organisational trust in an international joint venture (IJV). The

empirical setting of the research was an IJV relation between a United Arab Emirates (UAE)

firm and its western partner. Data were gathered from multiple sources, including documents,

observations, interviews and discussions with managers. The paper aims to explore

the process of trust development and the role of the contract and accounting in this. We

find that trust developed differently for the partners. Moreover the trust concerns of the

partners were not the same. Based on this we conclude that trust was not automatically

reciprocated. Instead it needs relating to other items such as the contract, accounting and

also the institutional environment. The open-book accounting we observed could only be

termed ‘partial’ because the western partner had access to the local partner’s books but not

the vice versa. But this partial open-book accounting created conflicts between the partners.

We argue that developing one kind of trust through one particular medium may help

one party but may damage the relationship between the partners.