Purpose

With the evolution of the turbulent environment constantly triggering the emergence of a trust crisis between organizations, how can university–industry (U–I) alliances respond to the trust crisis when conducting green technology innovation (GTI) activities? This paper aims to address this issue.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors examined the process of trust crisis damage, including trust first suffering instantaneous impair as well as subsequently indirectly affecting GTI level, and ultimately hurting the profitability of green innovations. In this paper, a piecewise deterministic dynamic model is deployed to portray the trust and the GTI levels in GTI activities of U–I alliances.

Findings

The authors analyze the equilibrium results under decentralized and centralized decision-making modes to obtain the following conclusions: Trust levels are affected by a combination of hazard and damage (short and long term) rates, shifting from steady growth to decline in the presence of low hazard and damage rates. However, the GTI level has been growing steadily. It is essential to consider factors such as the hazard rate, the damage rate in the short and long terms, and the change in marginal profit in determining whether to pursue an efficiency- or recovery-friendly strategy in the face of a trust crisis. The authors found that two approaches can mitigate trust crisis losses: implementing a centralized decision-making mode (i.e. shared governance) and reducing pre-crisis trust-building investments. This study offers several insights for businesses and academics to respond to a trust crisis.

Research limitations/implications

The present research can be extended in several directions. Instead of distinguishing attribution of trust crisis, the authors use hazard rate, short- and long-term damage rates and change in marginal profitability to distinguish the scale of trust crises. Future scholars can further add an attribution approach to enrich the classification of trust crises. Moreover, the authors only consider trust crises because of unexpected events in a turbulent environment; in fact, a trust crisis may also be a plateauing process, yet the authors do not study this situation.

Practical implications

First, the authors explore what factors affect the level of trust and the level of GTI when a trust crisis occurs. Second, the authors provide guidelines on how businesses and academics can coordinate their trust-building and GTI efforts when faced with a trust crisis in a turbulent environment.

Originality/value

First, the interaction between psychology and innovation management is explored in this paper. Although empirical studies have shown that trust in U–I alliances is related to innovation performance, and scholars have developed differential game models to portray the GTI process, building a differential game model to explore such an interaction is still scarce. Second, the authors incorporate inter-organizational trust level into the GTI level in university–industry collaboration, applying differential equations to portray the trust building and GTI processes, respectively, to reveal the importance of trust in CTI activities. Third, the authors establish a piecewise deterministic dynamic game model wherein the impact of crisis shocks is not equal to zero, which is inconsistent with most previous studies of Brownian motion.

中文翻译：

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产学研联盟如何应对绿色技术创新活动中的信任危机？

目的

随着动荡环境的演变不断引发组织间信任危机的出现，产学研联盟（U-I）在开展绿色技术创新（GTI）活动时如何应对信任危机？本文旨在解决这个问题。

设计/方法/途径

作者考察了信任危机损害的过程，包括信任首先遭受瞬间损害，然后间接影响 GTI 水平，最终损害绿色创新的盈利能力。在本文中，部署了一个分段确定性动态模型来描述 U-I 联盟的 GTI 活动中的信任和 GTI 级别。

发现

作者分析了分散和集中决策模式下的均衡结果，得出以下结论：危险率和损坏率。但是，GTI级别一直在稳步增长。在决定面对信任危机时是采用效率友好型策略还是恢复友好型策略时，必须考虑诸如危险率、短期和长期损害率以及边际利润变化等因素。作者发现有两种方法可以减轻信任危机的损失：实施集中决策模式（即共享治理）和减少危机前建立信任的投资。

研究局限性/影响

目前的研究可以扩展到几个方向。作者没有区分信任危机的归因，而是使用风险率、短期和长期损害率以及边际利润率的变化来区分信任危机的规模。未来的学者可以进一步增加归因方法来丰富信任危机的分类。此外，作者仅考虑由于动荡环境中的意外事件而导​​致的信任危机；事实上，信任危机也可能是一个平稳的过程，但作者并没有研究这种情况。

实际影响

首先，作者探讨了当信任危机发生时，哪些因素会影响信任水平和 GTI 水平。其次，作者提供了企业和学术界在动荡环境中面临信任危机时如何协调其信任建立和 GTI 工作的指南。

原创性/价值

首先，本文探讨了心理学与创新管理之间的相互作用。尽管实证研究表明，对 U-I 联盟的信任与创新绩效相关，并且学者们已经开发了微分博弈模型来描绘 GTI 过程，但构建微分博弈模型来探索这种相互作用仍然很少见。其次，作者将组织间信任水平纳入大学与产业合作中的 GTI 水平，应用微分方程分别描绘信任建立和 GTI 过程，以揭示信任在 CTI 活动中的重要性。第三，作者建立了分段确定性动态博弈模型，其中危机冲击的影响不等于零，这与以往大多数布朗运动研究不一致。