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In this paper we theoretically discuss and empirically examine the influence of trust on collaborative behavior in supply chain relationships. These concepts are very important in today’s inter- organizational business world, and therefore in supply chains. In theoretical part of this article we presume that establishment and development of relationships in supply chain depends on development of trust. Trust is defined as a willingness to rely on a partner in a supply chain in whom one has confidence. The stress is on expectation that another partner can be relied on to fulfill obligations and at the same time previous experience with partners in exchange relationships are taken in the consideration. Collaborative behavior is defined as a concept where two or more organizations, which work together in a supply chains, can through complementary characteristics gain shared means and goals that could not be achieved individually. Logistics managers, purchase and sales managers, project managers and employees in logistics department were included in our survey made on primary, secondary and tertiary sector of Slovene economy. We included companies of all sizes, both local and foreign companies present in Slovenia. 118 questionnaires were completed and involved in our research. According to the demographic data, our sample is comparable to population in terms of economy branch and size of companies. The Pearson correlation coefficient and linear regression analysis demonstrate statistically significant strong correlation between trust, shared values and communication and strong negative correlation between trust and opportunistic behavior. At the end we can confirm that there is a statistically significant influence of trust on collaborative behavior in supply chains. The results clearly indicate that all factors included in research are very important for today’s supply chain management.

The paper presents a simple qualitative model of online trust in the context of e-commerce. Qualitative models use just three values: Positive/Increasing, Zero/Constant and Negative/ Decreasing. Such quantifiers of trends are the least information intensive. Qualitative models can be useful, since models of online trust include such variables as e.g. Perceived website quality and ease of use (SIT) or Company’s positive reputation (REP) that are sometimes difficult or costly to quantify. Hence, a significant fraction of available information about online trust is not of numerical nature, e.g. if SIT is decreasing then online trust is decreasing as well. Such equationless relations are studied in this paper. The model has 13 variables and 32 pair-wise interrelations among them. The set of variables and interrelations was established based on discussions with experts and internet users. The model is solved and 23 solutions, i.e. scenarios are obtained (thus, we reduce a vast set of all “imaginable” scenarios concerning online trust to a manageable list of scenarios). All qualitative states, and the first and second qualitative derivatives of all variables are specified for each scenario. Many modifications, upgrades and extensions of the present model are easy within the methodological framework introduced in the paper. Qualitative modeling can be seen as one of the uncertainty calculi, such as fuzzy sets and rough sets, that can be helpful e.g. under information shortage (for example when new website is about to be launched and/or when novel, subjective or difficult to measure variables are considered). The paper is self-contained and no a priori knowledge of qualitative modeling is required on the reader’s part.