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10 - Evolving institutions of trust: personalized and institutional bases of trust in Nigerian and Ghanaian food trading

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

By
Fergus Lyon  and
Gina Porter
Edited by
Mark N. K. Saunders ,
Denise Skinner ,
Graham Dietz ,
Nicole Gillespie  and
Roy J. Lewicki
Fergus Lyon
Affiliation:
Middlesex University
Gina Porter
Affiliation:
Durham University
Mark N. K. Saunders
Affiliation:
University of Surrey
Denise Skinner
Affiliation:
Coventry University
Graham Dietz
Affiliation:
University of Durham
Nicole Gillespie
Affiliation:
University of Queensland
Roy J. Lewicki
Affiliation:
Ohio State University
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Summary

Summary

This chapter examines the processes of building cooperation in a context of sparse public-sector regulation. The Nigerian and Ghanaian food sectors are characterized by a highly dispersed and fragmented system of micro-entrepreneurs from diverse ethnic groups who both compete and cooperate in order to flourish. Drawing on ethnographic research, we consider the relationships and contracts that require an element of cross-cultural trust, how personal social relations and institutional forms are used to ensure trust and the role of cultural norms. Our empirical findings indicate that individuals draw on both personalized social relations and institutional forms of trust that are underpinned by culture-specific norms. Through personalized trust, traders have been able to operate across cultural boundaries, building common norms of behaviour over centuries, and shaping these into what are perceived essentially as professional, albeit personalized, codes of conduct and semi-formal institutional forms (such as associations) that function in parallel to the state.

Introduction

The Nigerian and Ghanaian food sectors are characterized by a highly dispersed and fragmented system of micro-entrepreneurs from a range of ethnic groups who both compete and cooperate in order to survive and grow. The fragmented nature of the sector necessitates a range of cooperative forms in order for the enterprises to gain access to information, finance, quality products and market spaces. The traders involved are found to have a number of different types of bilateral relations (joint ventures and informal reciprocal arrangements) both within cultural groups and crossing cultural boundaries.

Type
Chapter
Information
Organizational Trust
A Cultural Perspective
 , pp. 255 - 278
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2010

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