Magnus Mähring

IT project management has long been a key area of interest among IS scholars and practitioners, since IT projects constitute a key vehicle for IS development and implementation. A project can be defined as an interrelated set of activities intended to accomplish certain desired objectives within a limited period of time, typically executed by a project team. IT projects involve developing and/or deploying IT artifacts (comprised of either software, hardware, or both). IT project management thus refers to the application of knowledge, skills, techniques, and processes to conduct such projects within agreed-upon parameters (e.g., budget, schedule, scope, quality), and in concert with organizational goals and priorities. The significance of this topic for the IS discipline is evident in the number of publications that have addressed different aspects of project management dating back to 1978 when the first two MIS Quarterly articles on this topic were published. We have identified 39 publications in MIS Quarterly on the topic up to Summer 2020.

Conducting a case study of one inter-organizational relationship, we explore the process of inter-organizational trust repair. We make a conceptual distinction between cross-group trust consensus and cross-group trust discord within organizations and point to its importance for inter-organizational trust repair. Moreover, we identify the possibility of local trust repair – i.e. a situation where one group regains trust in the partner organization, while distrust persists at other group(s) – and develop propositions on its drivers and implications. Jointly, our findings contribute to a better understanding of multi-level trust processes, illuminating the theoretical relevance of cross-group interaction within organizations for better understanding trust development between organizations. We also develop a three-step process model of inter-organizational trust repair, showing how local trust repair can be an important intermediate step in repairing inter-organizational trust when multiple groups are involved. Finally, we point to the relevance of counter-intuitive governance strategies to repair trust in inter-organizational relationships.