The Role of Trust in the Informal Investor's Investment Decision: An Exploratory Analysis

Research into the informal venture capital market is characterized by a focus on empirical research into the characteristics of the market and on the development and analysis of the public policy Implications of this empirical research. There has, however, been little systematic application or development of theoretical models and frameworks appropriate to the informal venture capital market. Nor, with a few recent exceptions, has the empirical analysis of the market moved on to examine issues surrounding the process of Informal investment rather than the outcomes of that process. In this paper we seek to rectify both of these deficiencies. First, we develop a framework for the elucidation of the concepts of swift trust and swift cooperation, and in so doing formalize and expand on the generally passing references to trust in the entrepreneurship and venture capital literatures. Second, we derive from this an operationable framework for analyzing trust and cooperation, which we apply to the informal Investment decision-making process. Using verbal protocol analysis of Investor reactions In real time to one particular investment opportunity, we empirically examine the role of trust and cooperation in the investors’ Initial screening of potential investment opportunities, and the investors’ assessment of the intermediary responsible for providing the initial referral of the Investment opportunity.