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Abstract:
Trust among partners is an essential prerequisite in interfirm R & D collaboration. The paper deals with this question analysing the preconditions under which the establishment of trust among companies becomes possible. The case study of a very successful cooperative research project reveals trustbuilding as a modular, cascade-like process. Initially a wider scientific-technical network was established including all industrial and scientific actors who could be potentially interested in solving the technological problem at hand. The process ended with a smaller group of researchers from a few companies and scientific institutes cooperating in a government-sponsored R & D project. At each stage of this highly contingent process the intervention of public officials helped rendering cooperation successful.
