Can ‘post-socialist’entrepreneurs trust each other?Empirical findings on East GermanIT-entrepreneurs’ cognitivebackground of trust

As trust undeniably is a crucial factor of economic development, it seems to be veryimportant to find out where there exists a reasonable stock of trust and where not,as well as how the emergence of trust could be fostered, how its existence can bemaintained and how threats to trustful relations can be avoided. Answers to thesequestions are of particular interest with respect to regions that show a weakeconomic performance or that suffer from deep structural changes as the whole ofEastern Middle and Eastern Europe that has been undergoing a difficult process ofpost-socialist transformation for more than ten years now. There, as previouslyelsewhere in the Western world, a good deal of hopes has been pinned on theassumption that resident entrepreneurs and their mainly small and medium-sizedenterprises especially in the most advanced economic sectors will engage in cooperative,and hence trusting, relationships and networks, i.e. in forms of economicinteraction that are assumed to increase the economic outcome on the regionallevel. Until now, however, these hopes have come true only partly.[...]