Trust and collaborative ties in a community sport network

ABSTRACT

Within sport, multi-sector linkages are common; however, given their potential to achieve public goals, the results generated from the activities of networks encompassing organisations from different sectors are often limited. Trust is viewed as particularly important to multi-sector networks as organisations seek to achieve social purposes, gain legitimacy, acquire resources, engage in collective organisational learning, and build social capital. Using a social network analysis approach, this study tested whether the strength of trust ties and same sector ties predicted the collaborative ties in a community sport network. The network software program UCINET 6 was chosen because of its ability to test hypotheses using permutation methods as well its capacity to visually portray the network by plotting the relationships. The results support the hypothesis suggesting that the collaborative ties are predictive of trust and sector ties. Implications for sport and recreation managers are provided.

KEYWORDS:

• Community sport
• social network analysis
• trust
• multi-sector networks

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.