Trust Mediation in Knowledge Management and Sharing

The aim of this paper is to provide a theory of the role trust plays in knowledge sharing processes, by exploiting a cognitive model of the goals and beliefs of an agent involved in the decision of passing and/or accepting knowledge, and a related model of the symmetrical or asymmetrical trust relationships within a group (Trust-Nets). This theory is based on the claim that trust is a fundamental mediator in knowledge sharing, so as most authors studying Knowledge Management assert. Anyway they do not analyse the relationship between trust and knowledge circulation theoretically, what is the objective of our work. Considering knowledge sharing as a decisional act founded on two different socio-cognitive actions: to pass knowledge and to accept knowledge, we build a cognitive model of agent’s mind when passing or accepting it, that is a list of his/her goals and beliefs in accordance with which s/he decides if sharing knowledge or not; several of them are trust ingredients. Thus, trust as mental attitude (a specific set of beliefs and expectations) comes into play in knowledge sharing process. However, in our analysis trust is not only a subjective disposition (towards others) but it is also an act (the act of trusting somebody) and a social (more or less stable) relationship. This is why we also analyse trust relations not in mental terms but in structural-relational terms, as a net of “channels” for knowledge circulation.