TACT (Trust Across Cultures in Trade) is a programme conducted by a group of researchers working in various areas related to trust, culture and trade. We have links with artificial intelligence, with institutional economics, and with cultural psychology. The project aims at understanding and modelling trust and trade in cross-cultural contexts. We aim to develop intelligent tools that support people involved in negotiations during trade. Our primary focus is on food supply networks.

The TACT main objectives are:

  1. Provide insight into and explanations of the role of trust, deceit and culture in international trade networks by modelling and simulation.
  2. Develop an artificial trading environment as a research tool and as a training environment for people involved in international trade.

Consider the following episode (from Hofstede et al. 2006).

A Swiss buyer of goods is visiting a Chinese entrepreneur, trying to close a contract. The Chinese sits inscrutably while the Swiss explains his proposal in full detail. The Swiss finishes his speech, a bit nervous at receiving so little feedback. Finally the Chinese speaks: “This is not good for us.” And then “Let me take you for dinner”. If the Swiss buyer has never been to China before, he may be in the belief that his proposal is off. He may not have noticed that in fact the Chinese is keenly interested, and that is why he wants to strengthen the relationship with his buyer by taking him out to dinner. He means to continue negotiating at a later time, perhaps during dinner. It is not sure that the Swiss will come: he may consider that since the Chinese does not like his proposal, going out to eat strange Chinese food might be a disagreeable way of wasting time; or he may to get rid of this guy who turned his carefully prepared proposal down. So both negotiators could be letting a chance slip through their fingers, and worse, their expectations for the suitability of one another’s group as future business partners would be lowered. Misunderstandings breed prejudice.

Here we have an instance of our problem: trust across cultures in trade. What are its preconditions, its dynamics and its consequences? This is obviously an important issue. Misunderstandings and lack of trust can create a vicious circle that frustrates many people across the network and that lowers the quality that the total production network can deliver to its customers.

The increasing share of e-commerce in global commerce also calls for a good understanding of trust in different cultural contexts. In different cultural contexts, different factors may influence the trust that consumers and intermediate traders have in electronic systems. Understanding of the mechanisms and dynamics of trust enables the design of efficient systems for international e-commerce.

Formal models of the role of trust and national culture in trade processes can help to improve our understanding of these processes. Understanding of trust contributes to evaluation and design of institutional settings for efficient networks, and for a fair distribution of profit in the network. Current models of trust in social simulation do not take national culture into account.

As part of this research, gaming simulations and agent-based simulations are developed to construct a realistic model of trade network behaviour. The emphasis is on trade, in the sense of exchange of goods, and not so much on other aspects of trade networks such as the logistics or contractual aspects. In particular, trade as a bargaining process between various parties is central in this research.

Examples of games and simulations developed in the TACT programme are the TRUST AND TRACING GAME and the LEMON CAR GAME.

Researchers who (did) participate in the TACT programme are:

  • Koen Hindriks (Delft University of Technology)
  • Gert Jan Hofstede (Wageningen University)
  • Catholijn M. Jonker (Delft University of Technology)
  • Sebastiaan Meijer (Wageningen University, currently Delft University of Technology and

Kungliga Tekniska högskolan)

  • Dmytro Tykhonov (Delft University of Technology)
  • Tim Verwaart (LEI and guest at Delft University of Technology)
  • Neil Yorke-Smith (American University of Beirut, currently Delft University of Technology)

The TACT programme places itself in the emergent discipline of social simulation. It intends to contribute to our understanding of trust across cultures in trade from the perspective of this discipline. A major result of the programme so far is Tim Verwaart's dissertation on modelling culture's consequences for international trade processes (Verwaart 2011).

An ongoing research project is the LEMON CAR GAME. You are welcome to play the game!

Contact: Tim Verwaart.