Final TNO Report - The Effects of Interpersonal Trust On Joint eIDM Innovations 08062010

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Theeffectsofinterpersonaltrustonjoint
eIDMinnovations
Date 8June2010

Author(s) TijsvandenBroek
NoorHuijboom
Prof.VictorBekkers(Review)
Version Finalreport
Assignor AlliantieVitaalBestuur

Reportnumber 35291

Numberofpages 64(incl.appendices)
Numberofappendices
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2010TNO
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Contents
1 Introduction.................................................................................................................... 4
1.1 Motivation........................................................................................................................ 4
1.2 Research question ............................................................................................................ 5
1.3 Methodology.................................................................................................................... 6
2 Theory: trust in joint innovations .............................................................................. 10

2.1 Introduction.................................................................................................................... 10
2.2 Definition of trust........................................................................................................... 10
2.3 Concepts of trust ............................................................................................................ 11
2.4 Grounds for trust............................................................................................................ 12
2.5 Stages of trust ................................................................................................................ 13
2.6 Evaluation of trust in joint innovations.......................................................................... 14
2.7 Hypotheses..................................................................................................................... 16
3 Belgium: Belpic ............................................................................................................ 19

3.1 Introduction.................................................................................................................... 19
3.2 Technical solution: Belpic ............................................................................................. 21
3.3 The role of trust in the Belpic innovation ...................................................................... 22
4 Austria: Brgerkarte................................................................................................... 26
4.1 Introduction.................................................................................................................... 26
4.2 Technical solution: Brgerkarte..................................................................................... 28
4.3 The role of trust in the Brgerkarte innovation.............................................................. 30
5 Finland: VETUMA ...................................................................................................... 34

5.1 Introduction.................................................................................................................... 34
5.2 Technical solution: VETUMA....................................................................................... 37
5.3 The role of trust in the VETUMA innovation................................................................ 38
6 Netherlands: DIGID .................................................................................................... 43

6.1 Introduction.................................................................................................................... 43
6.2 Technical solution: DigiD.............................................................................................. 44
6.3 The role of trust in the DigiD innovation....................................................................... 46
7 Cross-case analysis....................................................................................................... 51
8 Conclusions................................................................................................................... 54
8.1 Factors on which trust is grounded ................................................................................ 54
8.2 Factors that change the level of trust over time ............................................................. 56
8.3 The influence of trust on joint innovation process......................................................... 57
9 Policy implications ....................................................................................................... 60

9.1 General implications ...................................................................................................... 60
9.2 Implications for policy instruments ............................................................................... 60
9.3 Future research............................................................................................................... 62
Literature overview ...................................................................................................................... 63

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1 Introduction
1.1 Motivation
Internet is a vital instrument for the interaction between individuals and organisations.
This interaction between individuals and government agencies can include the exchange
of sensitive data. Therefore a digital identity infrastructure consisting of one or more
electronic Identification Management systems is essential. Users should be aware of the
government agency they are communicating with and government agencies, in turn,
should be certain about the actual identity of the citizens they are communicating with.
The Digital Identity (DigiD) is a first and essential step in the Dutch Public Sector for
such a digital identification infrastructure.
The present research is part of a broader research programme on digital identity

infrastructure. It consists of three parts:
The role of trust in the realisation of national public eIDM systems by governmental
networks
The role of government in the roll-out and take-up of electronic identities and eIDM
systems?
Factors that influence trust of users (i.e. citizens) in eIDM systems within the public
sector
This research focuses on the first part: the role of interpersonal trust in the realisation of
joint electronic IDentity Management (eIDM) systems. Government agencies
increasingly cooperate to improve efficiency and the quality of their services.
Therefore, processes and information systems usually cross organisational boundaries.
Due to this trend, ICT innovations are increasingly undertaken by a network of
government agencies, instead of just a single organisation. (Powel et al, 1996; Fountain
and Atkinson, 1998). These joint ICT innovations are more complex and risky.
Important hampering factors are: conflicting interests, complexity, low perceived
importance of ICT, lack of interoperability of standards and limited interaction between
individual actors. Consequently the adoption of joint ICT innovations lags far behind
compared to the private sector (Huijboom and Van Staden, 2005).
One of the areas in which more cross-agency cooperation is needed, is the electronic
identification for the provision of government services. Several studies have
demonstrated that the progress being made in this area remains behind expectations1. In
addition these studies show that eIDM policy and practice in Member States is too
fragmented with several public sectors having their own policy and eIDM solutions.
According to European policy, the (eIDM) systems of European countries have to be
integrated in one single system for all kind of electronic public services2. The past few
years Member States increasingly try to integrate various systems into one eIDM
solution for all government services. Therefore, multiple government agencies develop
1
Millard J (editor) (2007) European eGovernment 2005-2007: taking stock of good practice and progress
towards implementation of the i2010 eGovernment Action Plan, for the European Commission, published
in conjunction with the European Ministerial eGovernment Conference, Lisbon, 19-21 September 2007
2
IDABC, (2007), European eGovernment Services, eID Interoperability for PEGS, Brussels.
TNO report | 5 / 64
and implement such a single system jointly. Yet, like joint ICT innovations in general,
European research shows that the joint development of eIDM systems is often difficult3.
This research does not aim to give a broad overview of innovation studies and
sociology literature on trust. In contrast, it focuses specifically on the cross-road of
innovation and interpersonal trust. Recent literature shows that interpersonal trust
between individual actors in the process of a joint ICT innovation (e.g. Considine et al
2009, Edelenbos & Klijn, 2007, Nooteboom, Nooteboom, 20064) has an important
influence on the success of such projects5. In addition, many researchers studied system
failures of innovation, in which trust plays a role as well. For example, Klein Woolthuis
et al. (2005) describe interaction failures, such as strong and weak network failures.
However, according to Edelenbos & Klijn (2007) it remains currently unclear how
interpersonal trust precisely plays a role in the joint innovation process remains unclear.
How does trust manifests itself on interpersonal level in the innovation processes
(unlike the macro level in the systemic failure literature)? We focus our research on
interpersonal trust in the innovation process of eIDM projects, as these projects are
specifically interesting. First, developing and implementing an eIDM system is
typically a cross-agency and complex endeavour. Therefore, it needs multiple
stakeholders from different government agencies to build trust and cooperate. Second,
several European nations develop similar eIDM systems, which isolates the system
itself as an independent variable. This allows cross-country (and cross-culture)
comparison. The consequence of this choice is that the conclusions and implications
mostly hold for eIDM projects and to a lesser degree for other ICT projects.
TNO and the Alliantie Vitaal Bestuur have addressed this research question and jointly
invested in a research project to gain more insight into the influence of social factors
in particular trust on joint-up innovation projects in the public sector. This report is
the result of this research project and gives a detailed overview of the findings.
1.2 Research question
The main research question of this study is:
What is the role of trust in the realisation of public eIDM systems in particular
realised by governmental networks and chains?
This research question has been operationalised in the following sub questions:
1 What can be understood by the notion of trust?
2 How does trust become manifest in tangible innovation projects?
3 How does trust influence the joint innovation process?
4 What can be learned from the manifestation of trust in joint innovation projects?
The aim of this study is scientific in nature. This research aims to shed light on how
trust is affected and how it effects the innovation process, e.g. the mechanisms,
3
Millard, Huijboom N. and Leitner C., (2007) European eGovernment 2005-2007:Taking stock of
good practice and progress towards implementation of the i2010 eGovernment Action Plan, Brussels.
4
Bart Nooteboom, Essay for the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs, as background document for the
Innovation Lecture 2006, September 2006
5
Huijboom, N.M., (2006) The Domestication of ICTs in Government, DEXA eGovernment
Conference proceedings, Philadelphia.
TNO report | 6 / 64
strategies, techniques, requisites, rather than giving a quantitative assessment of the

relationships. Therefore, the research methods (literature review and case study
research) are qualitative in nature. Despite of the scientific nature of the report, the
conclusions of the research will be translated in policy implications. Understanding the
role of interpersonal trust in innovation processes give policy makers and other
government practitioners insight how to stimulate trust or to deal with in joint eIDM
innovations in in the public sector.
The next paragraph describes how the research question has been answered.
1.3 Methodology

Literaturereview
First, existing scientific articles forms the basis of this research. The aim of the
literature review (section 2.1) is to study the role and effect of interpersonal trust on the
occurrence of joint, technological innovations in the public sector in particular the
development of eIDM systems. The most important academic papers were analyzed on
1) definition and concepts of trust 2) grounds of trust 3) process of trust and 4) trust in
joint innovation. The yielding from this literature review will structure the analysis of
each case.

Casestudyresearch
A multiple case study design is an excellent method to get an in-depth and qualitative
insight in the complicated process of joint innovations. 51 semi-open interviews were
held within a period of 3 months: 17 in Finland, 13 in Austria, 11 in Belgium and 10 in
the Netherlands. Most interviews were held face-to-face at the interviewees office, but
occasionally an interview was held by phone. The length of the interviews varied from
50 to 150 minutes. The decision was made to transcribe instead of record the interviews
due to the sensitive nature of the data.
The cases were selected based upon four selection criteria:

Maturity of the eIDM system
Type of application domain
Level of trust
Type of democratic model
The next paragraphs will describe how these criteria were applied and which cases are
selected in the end.
Maturity of the eIDM system

The maturity of the eIDM systems is essential to study all phases of the joint innovation
process (initiation, development, implementation and diffusion). Cases qualify for this
research when they are at least in the implementation phase. Table 1 shows that 17
European eIDM systems are mature enough to be selected.
Table 1: Phases of eIDM systems for each Member State 2009
Initiation Development Implementation Diffusion /

consolidation
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Cyprus Germany France Austria

Czech Republic Hungary Ireland Belgium
Greece Latvia Malta Denmark
Luxembourg Lithuania Slovenia Estonia
Poland Netherlands Finland
Portugal Italy
Slovakia Spain
UK Sweden
Type of application domain

eIDM systems are used for a wide range of applications, such as social security, tax,
migration, transportation and health. The contractor prefers this research to focus on the
social security domain6. Seven of the countries with mature enough eIDM systems
apply their systems in the social security domain (see Table 2).
Table 2 Countries that implemented of diffused an eIDM system in the social security sector (marked grey) (Source: eID nteroperability for
PEGS, 2007)
Country Most significant Application type Country Most significant Application type
system system
Austria Citizen Card Social security Italy Carta didentit Tax
Tax elettronica Municipalities
Healthcare Police
Municipalities
Belgium SIS and Belpic Social security Malta eID Malta Social security
Tax Tax
Municipalities Transport
Municipalities
Denmark OCES Health Netherlands DigiD Social security
Education Tax
Tax Municipalities
Labour
Estonia ID-card Social security Slovenia CSP Healthcare
Tax Tax
Education
Finland FINEID and TUPAS Social Security Spain DNI-e Company registration
Employment Tax
Patent registration Municipalities
France Vitale/healthcare Healthcare Sweden BankID Tax
professional cards Healthcare
Registration of
companies
Ireland Reach (Public service Social security
broker)

In sum, the countries that qualify for the maturity and application type are: Austria,
Belgium, Estonia, Finland, Ireland, Malta and the Netherlands.
6
See minutes Alliantie vitaal Bestuur meeting on 16 juli 2009.
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Level of trust
As we study the role of trust, the level of trust is an important criterion for sampling the
cases. Many researchers (e.g. Fukuyama, 1996, Nooteboom, 2002, Koppejan and Klijn,
2004) argue that the role of trust in inter-organizational networks depends on the
countrys specific social-cultural context. For example, spontaneous cooperation
between individual actors happens more often in countries with a high level of trust
than in countries with a low level of trust (Fukuyama, 1996). Therefore, the variable
high trust versus low trust countries is chosen to study how the role of trust vary in
different social-cultural contexts.
The World Values survey measures the level of trust in countries7. More specifically,
this survey asks: would you say that most people can be trusted or that you need to be
very careful in dealing with people? So, it measures to what degree citizens trust each
other. Table 3 shows a ranking of the average trust level in the countries that have a
mature eIDM system in the social security domain. The data have been collected
between 1981 and 2007. It clearly shows that Malta and Estonia have the lowest levels
of trust and the Netherlands and Finland have the highest level of trust.
Table 3 Average trust of citizens between 1981 and 2007 (source: The World Values Survey 2009)
Malta Estonia Belgium Austria Ireland Netherlands Finland

Most people can
be trusted 18.8 % 24.0 % 31.5 % 32.8 % 41.6 % 52.0 % 55.5 %
Most people
cannot be trusted 81.2 % 76.0 % 68.5 % 67.2 % 58.4 % 48.0 % 44.5 %
Type of democratic model

The type of democratic model is an important factor for the role of trust as well.
Research (Lijphart, 1999) demonstrates that trust is more important in the decision-
making of consensual democracies (i.e. poldermodel) than in the decision-making of
Westminister democracy (i.e. two party system). For example, in a consensual
democracy trust is necessary to get a democratic majority, as coalitions have to be built.
The number of political parties that effectively participate in a countrys political

system is a good measure to distinguish the type of democratic model. Lijphart (1999)
measured the number of effective parties8. Table 4 ranks 6 candidate countries on the
effective number of parties and the number of elections between 1945 and 1996. It
seems that a slightly different picture than the level of trust emerges.
Table 4 Effective number of parties and the number of elections between 1945-1996 (source: Lijphart, 1999)
Country Mean Lowest Highest Number of elections

Finland 5.03 4.54 5.58 15
Netherlands 4.65 3.49 6.42 15
Belgium 4.32 3.45 6.51 17
Ireland 2.84 2.38 3.63 15
Austria 2.48 2.09 3.73 16
Malta 1.99 1.97 2.00 6
7
www.worldvaluessurvey.org
8
Estonia was not studied by Lijphart (1999).
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Picture 1 shows the relative position of the 6 candidate countries, when plotting the
level of trust against the type of democratic model. Two types of sampling are used:
extreme cases and similar cases. Extreme cases (e.g. Belgium, Austria, The Netherlands
/ Finland and Ireland) provide insight in how trust holds in different social-cultural and
political context. Similar cases (Finland The Netherlands and Malta-Austria) show
how the role of trust can differ in similar social-cultural and political context.
Consensual
Finland
Belgium
The Netherlands
Low trust High trust
Ireland
Austria
Malta Westminster
Figure 1 Confrontation of type of democratic model and level of trust
The contractor prefers to compare the Dutch case to enable this research to yield
recommendations for Dutch policy makers. Therefore, it has been decided to take the
Netherlands and Finland as similar cases and the Netherlands, Belgium and Austria as
extreme cases. Initially the research team chose Belgium, Austria and Ireland as
extreme cases (with this choice all quadrants of the figure would be covered). However,
during the planning of the interviews of the Irish case it appeared that almost none of
the Irish government practitioners was willing to give an interview and thus it became
unfeasible to carry out the Irish case. One of the practitioners explained: Success has
many parents and failure is an orphan Yet, current selection (Austria, Belgium,
Netherlands, Finland) still covers both low trust and high trust countries as well as
consensual and West Minister democracies. Consequently we expect that different
manifestations of trust can be found in the selected cases.
In conclusion, the following cases were selected:

The Netherlands (high level of trust, consensual democracy)
Finland (high level of trust, consensual democracy)
Belgium (low level of trust, consensual democracy)
Austria (low level of trust, Westminster democracy)

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2 Theory: trust in joint innovations
2.1 Introduction
Many academics have examined the concept of trust, in particular in the scientific areas
of sociology and management (e.g. Nooteboom, 2002, Lane & Bachman, 1998,
Rousseau et al, 1998). The concept has been approached from various perspectives; e.g.
interpersonal trust, trust in institution and trust in objects. In addition, several
mechanisms related to trust have been examined; e.g. on the one hand the effect of
human behaviour, object characteristics and institutional arrangements on the presence
of trust and on the other hand the influence of trust on behaviour, the attributes of
objects and institutional features. The broadness and versatile character of the term trust
however has resulted in theoretical contradictions on the concept, with partly
overlapping and partly conflicting definitions, levels, types, sources, roles and
limitations of trust (Nooteboom, 2002). Hence, for contemporary research on trust it is
important to have a clear focus on specific types and manifestations of trust. The aim of
this literature review is to study the role and effect of interpersonal trust on the
occurrence of joint, technological innovations in the public sector in particular the
development of eIDM systems. First, it will describe the definition of interpersonal trust
and the different concepts of trust in literature. Next, the foundations and stages of
interpersonal trust are discussed: how is trust between persons developed over time and
how does the presence of trust change? Last, literature about the role of interpersonal
trust in innovation processes is briefly discussed. This chapter ends up with the
theoretical hypotheses, which form the analytical framework for the case studies.
2.2 Definition of trust
There are many descriptions of trust. For some, trust is an expectation (see Lane &
Bachmann, 1998; Rousseau et al, 1998); for others it is the cement of society
(Fukuyama, 1995) or a container concept that can hardly be separated from the shared
norm or rules (see for instance Putnam 1995). To be useful in empirical research
however, the concept must be clearly and rather narrowly defined. When considering
Edelenbos & Klijn (2007) on trust, two important factors predict the need for
interpersonal trust:
Vulnerability (Based on Deaking & Michie, 1997). When an actor trusts another
actor, he or she is willing or assume an open and vulnerable position. He or she
expects the other to refrain from opportunistic behaviour even if there is the
possibility to show this behaviour. In this sense, the actor trusts that his or her
partner will take his or her interests into account (Nooteboom, 2002, Rousseau et al,
1998).
Risks (based on Chiles & McMackin, 1996; Gambetta, 1988a, 1988b; Lane &
Bachmann, 1998). Trust plays an important role in ambiguous, unpredictable and
risky situations. In risky situations, trust is a precondition for undertaking any
action. A conscious choice is made to take a risk because of the belief that the other
party can be trusted.
In this risky and vulnerable situation trust is based on mutual expectations (based on
Lane & Bachmann, 1998; Zucker, 1986). Trust is reciprocal in nature: one expects the
other not to behave in an opportunistic way. So, the concept of trust presumes a stable
positive expectation (or prediction) of the intentions and motives of other actors. Trust
reduces unpredictability, complexity, and ambiguity in interactions because one can
anticipate (some of) the behaviour of the other actor.
2.3 Concepts of trust
This paragraph gives an overview of the different concepts of trust, which are all taken
into account in the grounds, stages and evaluation of interpersonal trust in the
innovation process. Although most concepts of interpersonal trust share the three
common elements as set out in the previous section, theorists have conflicting views on
the social grounds on which trust may be based. These theoretic divergences are
predominantly caused by a different approach of the human nature (e.g. the extent to
which mankind is seen as being rational). Some theorists (mainly economists) perceive
trust as a rational assessment by an individual of the chance that the other will act in an
opportunistic way (e.g. Williamson, 1993, Preisendrfer 1995). In this perspective,
human action (and also trust in certain behaviour of the other) is based upon a rational
calculation of the costs and benefits and chance of opportunistic behaviour. According
to these theorists, a person is only willing to trust the other in situations in which he or
she expects that based upon a cost-benefit calculation the other will not act in an
opportunistic way. This instrumental approach of trust however has received much
critique.
Most critics contend that rational actor theories neglect the unpredictability of future
behaviour and incompleteness of information, which hamper a clear-cut assessment of
costs and benefits. Whereas Axelrod (1984) and Coleman (1990) for instance assume
that actors share expectations about the future, more sociological accounts would stress
that the unfolding of the future is in itself uncertain. Their uncertainty perspective of
trust is built incrementally and the relationship may change in an unpredictable
direction neither gain nor loss can ever be calculated with certainty. In other words, in
every relationship there are uncertainties which require a basis of trust for certain
human interaction and action. As Bradach and Eccles put it (1989: 108): the future is
rarely preordained; magnitude and timing of the trustees response is influenced by
social norms which complicate calculation: and, most importantly, the first step in a
game without history, taken in the face of incomplete information about the trustee,
requires a one-sided precommitment from the trustor based on mere
beliefs/expectations about the trustee.
There however is a third theoretical stream of scientists who contend that the grounds
for trust will vary with the social context of trust and/or that the nature of trust will vary
with the stage of a relationship reached. These theorists use a multidimensional concept
of trust which is based upon a combination of theoretical viewpoints. Common
combinations are cognitive trust with value- or emotion-based trust (e.g. Barber 1983,
Lewis and Weigert, 1985) and a combination of calculative with either cognitive or
morally based trust (Dasgupta, 1988, Chiles and McMackin, 1996). In both these two
theoretical approaches of trust, common cognitions are considered to have a
determining influence on the presence or non-presence of trust. Cognitions, defined as
the rules that constitute the nature of reality and the frames through which meaning is
made (Scott, 1995:40), are embodied in the expectations people have on the social
order in general and on specific interaction with others. Cognitions form a basis for
interpersonal trust or distrust in the sense that individuals base their expectations of the
others behaviour on shared social norms. Zucker (1986) for instance argues that
expectations are based upon social rules which provide a general framework for
behaviour. In addition, Zucker (1986) contends that the stronger the common social
framework of rules and routines (e.g. due to social homogeneity), the more likely it is
that trust will develop spontaneously.
This study will not specifically focus on one perspective on the concept of trust.
However, these perspectives are important in relation to the grounds of trust. For
example, the process of routinisation, which will be further explained in the next
paragraph, is a prime example of Williamsons (among others) rational perspective of
trust. The third dynamic perspective on trust is for example important to study how
presence of trust change over time, in other words the stages of trust.
2.4 Grounds for trust
Now the definition, need and concepts of trust are clear, how can one know that the
other will meet his or her expectation? Where does somebody ground his or her positive
expectations upon? This paragraph describes these foundations.
Personal characteristics
Personal characteristics, such as integrity, benevolence and capabilities, have an
important influence on interpersonal trust (e.g. Schoorman et al., 2007; Mayer et al.,
1995). The function of a person (including the organisation power) within the hierarchy
of an organisation can increase the predictability of a person. For example, one will
know that he or she is able (in terms of power) to live up his or her promises. Within
personal characteristics, this research will specifically focus on personal capabilities,
such as expertise.
Norms and values

Trust can be based upon the sharing of norms and values between individuals. The
belief of reliability is not necessarily related to a long, intensive, emotional contact and
the well-knowing of each other, but to generally shared norms and values (e.g. Sabel,
1993, Fox, 1974, Zucker, 1986). For instance, scientist X can decide to share his draft
studies with scientist Y who X does not know too well -, because X beliefs that Y will
not publish his text thus that Y will act in an honest way - as they both belong to the
same academic community in which plagiarism is highly condemned (and thus the
reputation of Y is at stake).
Identification
A more psychological basis for trust is the sharing of experiences. Nooteboom
(2002:81) explains this as follows: One will more easily help someone when one can
identify with his need. One can more easily forgive someones breach of trust or
reliance when one can identify with the lack of competence or the motive that caused
it. Research (Frissen and Huijboom, 2009) for instance shows that the level of trust
between patients who suffer from the same disease is higher than the level of trust
between random chosen individuals. The fact that people share the same experiences,
concerns and struggles appears to have a bounding effect and increases interpersonal
trust.
Routinisation
Several scientists argue that the higher the routinisation in actions of a person the more
predictable the actions of that person and the more trust people have in the reliability of
that person. An example may be the reputation of an individual; if the person always
acts in a specific way, people will trust that he/she will act in the same way in the
future. Routinisation is a rational process, in which positive experiences build up
towards a positive reputation (Nooteboom, 1999). In contrast to transferability of trust,
routinisation takes place without a third person interfering in the interpersonal
relationship.
Strong ties
Several scientists argue that there are types of relationships in which there is in the vast
majority of cases a strong belief of mutual trust between persons (e.g. Lane and
Bachmann, 1998). Examples are ties within families, inner-circle of friends, but also
within sectarian groups. These relationships mostly consist of a long, intensive,
emotional and empathic contact and well-knowing of the other. Yet, also in these
relationships there are cases of distrust deriving from a feeling of the other being
unfaithful or dishonest. Trust is not a given element of a strong tie, but can often been
found in strong relationships (e.g. Lane and Bachmann, 1998).
Opinions of trusted persons transferability of trust

Theorists have also pointed to the transferability of trust (see e.g. Ferrin et al, 2006):
person X knows and highly trusts person Z, who knows and trusts person Y; then
person X may trust person Y because person Z trusts person Y. A persons reputation is
an example of transferability of trust (Shapiro, 1987; Mayer et al., 1995).
2.5 Stages of trust
Trust built up over time. Sometimes it can take ages between two persons two gain trust
in each other. Therefore the large majority of theorists argue that levels of interpersonal
trust and trustworthiness are not static but dynamic; e.g. trust and trustworthiness can
emerge and disappear (Zucker, 1986, Lindenberg, 2000, Nooteboom, 2002). In
literature, in particular attention is paid to the construction of trust. Schapiro
(1987:625) argues that Typically () social exchange relations evolve in a slow
process, starting with minor transactions in which little trust is required because little
risk is involved and in which partners can prove their trustworthiness, enabling them to
expand their relation and engage in major transactions. This argument has been
endorsed by others (e.g. van de Ven, 1992). McAllister (1995) proposes two stages of
trust development: cognition-based trust followed by affect-based trust. These stages
can easily be linked with the grounds for trust. Cognition-based trust is for example
grounded in personal capabilities (such as expertise) and Routinisation. On the other
hand, affect-based trust is based on identification and empathy. Lewicki and Bunker
(1996) proposed three stages of calculus-based, knowledge based and identification-
based trust. Nooteboom (2002:90) distinguishes between the following three stages of
the evolution of trust:
1 Stage of control in the absence of trust. In this stage trust is absent which forces
individuals to assess the competences and opportunism of the other. One way in
which people try to limit the risks is by taking small steps.
2 Stage of assessing trustworthiness and developing tolerance levels of trust. In this
stage, the involved persons mutually obtain more knowledge and experience which
forms the basis for setting tolerance levels of trust. The rational grounds for trust,
mentioned in the previous paragraph, are most dominant.
3 Stage of widening tolerance levels, In this stage the tolerance levels of trust are
widened upon the basis of identification and empathy.
Interpersonal trust can not only increase over time but also decrease. A decline of trust
between to individuals can emerge in case one of the involved parties does not live up
to the expectations of the other. However, Zucker (1986:59) argues that those
disappointments in the other do not necessarily break down trust. He states that: A
violation of expectations produces a sense of disruption of trust, or profound confusion,
but not of distrust. Distrust only emerges when the suspicion arises that the disruption
of expectations in one exchange is likely to generalize to other transactions. To distrust,
then, implies an attribution of intentionality that continuous throughout all interactions
or exchanges, at least of a particular type. The joint solution of conflict can enhance
and deepen trust, in several ways. On the one hand it may result in a learning process,
which confirms the value of the relation and thereby increases mutual commitment.
Moreover, the fact that the relation survived the test may increase interpersonal trust.
On the other hand, in particular between people who have a weak tie a violation of
expectations can result in mutual recrimination and suspicion.
2.6 Evaluation of trust in joint innovations
Although the research area of trust and networked innovation is relatively immature,
several theorists have argued that the presence or non-presence of trust can have a
determining influence on the occurrence of networked innovation (e.g. Fountain, 2000,
Lane and Bachmann, 1998, Van de Ven 1999, Nooteboom, 2006). This importance of
trust can be explained by the risky nature of inter-agency cooperation. Nooteboom
(2006) and other authors argue that trust is relevant in relation to the following three
main risks underlying inter-agency cooperation:
Because of its explorative nature and strong interdependencies, collaborative
innovation can imply substantial risks and uncertainties for involved actors (both
individuals and organisations). As various partners are involved in the innovation,
there can be a lack of mutual understanding, or absorptive capacity. This might be
in particular the case in process innovation, where knowledge and competencies are
being developed. Business models are new and a common language still has to be
developed. On the one had cognitive distance and heterogeneity is needed in order
to innovate (to combine knowledge) and on the other hand cognitive distance can
hamper effective collaboration. Nooteboom (2006) speaks in this regard of the
optimal cognitive distance; large enough to yield novelty and at the same time
small enough to develop a mutual understanding. In the innovation literature Klein
Woolthuis et al. (2005) describe similar dilemma for interaction failures, such as the
presence of too strong ties (tunnel vision) and presence of too weak ties (high
transaction costs or inadequate knowledge transfer. Whether the relationship
between trust and creativity / innovativeness is direct or mediated by other variables
is not clear. For example, Sztompka (1999) argues that trust is needed for
cooperation and cooperation in its turn is needed for creative process. On the other
hand, Mamynika et al. (2002) shows that an atmosphere of trust directly affects the
creative collaboration in teams.
A second problem of inter-agency cooperation is the risk of spillover: competitive
advantage from commercially valuable new knowledge or competence may leak
to competitors. Although this problem seems not to exist in the public sector, there
may be other forms of competition between public sector agencies. In cases of

conflicting interests public sector agencies may use knowledge in a strategic way,
e.g. to strengthen their position in their relation to other public sector agencies.
Dependence on partners is mentioned by Nooteboom as the third risk in networked
innovation. When separate organisations jointly innovate, they depend on the
efforts and investments of the other during the innovation process, but may also be
dependend on them when the innovation is implemented (e.g. if they jointly use the
new product or share processes). The dependence on partners limits organisations to
develop their own strategies, take their own decisions and act in their own interest.
In network collaboration there are several ways to manage relational risks. Nooteboom
describes three strategies to control risks:
Control. The first type is opportunity control. In this situation the undertaking of or
refraining from actions is heavily influenced by legal frameworks (e.g. contracts) or
hierarchy (e.g. within or between organisations). Escalation of a problem up the
hierarchy of two organisations is a prime example of hierarchical control. The
second type is motivation control, in which case actions are based upon incentives
(e.g. rewards).
Trust. Trustworthiness may be a result of an established ethic or practice of
behaviour, based on widely shared social norms and values. Within the relationship
trust may be based upon values developed during the relationship or empathy.
Empathy may lead to identification, e.g. the sense of shared experiences among
people who are in a comparable situation (e.g. patients). Trust and trustworthiness
may also arise from routinisation, where trust and trustworthiness is based upon
earlier positive experiences.
Third parties. For the control of conflict third parties may also play a role. A third
party and thus transferability of trust may serve as an independent intermediary
which manages conflicting interests, builds consensus and has a brokerage role in
case of conflicts between parties.
Nooteboom (2002) argues that trust may be needed to cooperatively innovate in a

network of organisations. He states: to deal with risks we can try to impose control,
but control is never perfect, especially in innovation. In innovation there is too much
uncertainty to manage risks completely by contract, monitoring and control. Innovation
requires creativity, which requires freedom of action. And where control ends we need
trust. However, he also contends that trust should not be unconditional as a solid
ground for trust may be missing (e.g. due to intense competition).
Trust plays different roles during the different phases of the joint innovation process:
initiation, development, implementation and diffusion.
In the initiation phase of a joint innovation, the sharing of (multi-disciplinary, inter-
sectoral and/or inter-level) expertise is an important driver for the creation of new
ideas. If the personal or company interests - such as intellectual property - are not
contractually arranged; the risks high and the power balances unequal, then a high
level of trust is needed to share expertise within the network.
Also in the implementation phase of joint innovations trust may be a prerequisite.
Often the interests of involved parties are divergent or even conflicting and the risks
for involved parties (poor return on investments or reputation damage) may be high.
Trust then is a precondition for the ability of bridging deviating interests and the
willingness of jointly taking risks.
In the diffusion phase trust as a determinant may be less important as the risks may
be lower because the impact and the outcome of the innovation may be less
uncertain.
2.7 Hypotheses
2.7.1 Overall trust model

As described in the introduction of this report, the present research project is part of a
broader research programme on eIDM systems. In order to create as much synergy
between the separate research projects as possible, we have tried align the conceptual
frameworks of the research projects. Hence, we have used the trust model used by the
other projects as a basis and tried to fit the variables as found in literature into this
model. During this exercise we however found that the model used by the other project
did not fully cover the variables and trust mechanisms as described in innovation
literature.
The theoretical sections 2.1-2.6 show three perspecitves of interpersonal trust in joint
innovation:
Factors on which trust is grounded
Factors which change the level of trust over time
The influence of trust in the joint innovation process.
Table 5 Overview of hypotheses
Grounds Stages Evaluation

Factors on which trust is Factors changing the level Influence of trust on
grounded of trust over time innovation process
H1 Personal characteristics H6 Control in absence of H9 Hierarchy
trust
H2 Norms and values H7 Unmet expectations H10 Legal mechanisms
H3 Identification and H8 Joint solution of H11 Trusted third party
empathy conflict
H4 Routinisation H12 Creativity
H5 Transferibility of trust H13 Motivational control
H14 Bridging deviating
interests
H15 Risks
The following hypotheses (see table 5) can be made for these three perspectives. The
intra and inter case analysis in chapters 3-7 will substantiate or nuance the hypotheses.
2.7.2 On what factors is trust grounded?
H1 (PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS):
Trust can be based upon personal characteristics, such as integrity, benevolence and
capabilities.
H2 (NORMS AND VALUES):

Trust can be based upon the sharing of norms and values between individuals.
H3 (IDENTIFICATION AND EMPATHY):

The fact that people share the same experiences, concerns and struggles appears to
have a bound.
H4 (ROUTINISATION):
The higher the routinisation (more knowledge and experience) in actions of a person
the more predictable the actions of that person and the more trust people have in the
reliability of that person.
H5 (TRANSFERABILITY OF TRUST):
Trust is transferable between individuals.
2.7.3 What factors change the level of trust over time?
H6 (CONTROL IN ABSENCE OF TRUST):

When trust is absent, individuals are forced to assess the competences and opportunism
of the other.
H7 (UNMET EXPECTATIONS):
A decline of trust between individuals can emerge in case one of the involved parties
does not live up to the expectations of the other, as it decreases the reciprocity of the
trust relation.
H8 (JOINT SOLUTION OF CONFLICT):

The joint solution of conflict can enhance and deepen trust.
2.7.4 How does trust influence the joint innovation process?
H9 (HIERARCHY):
In the case of a low level of trust during joint innovation, trust is compensated by
mechanisms of hierarchy.
H10 (LEGAL MECHANISMS):

In the case of a low level of trust during joint innovation, trust is compensated by legal
mechanisms, e.g. contracts.
H11 (TRUSTED THIRD PARTY):

putting a third party / opinion in place.
H12 (CREATIVITY):
Trust is a necessary requisite for creativity in a team .
H13 (MOTIVATIONAL CONTROL):

motivational control, such as (financial) incentives.
H14 (BRIDGING DEVIATING INTERESTS):

Trust is a precondition for the ability of bridging deviating interests.
H15 (RISKS):
Trust is a precondition for the willingness of jointly taking risks.
3 Belgium: Belpic
3.1 Introduction
This introduction paragraph gives a chronological overview of the eIDM innovation

process in Belgium9.
Initiation
1999 The e-Signature directive10 of the European Commission inspired Belgian
government
The National Register Department11 of the Ministry of the Interior
commissioned researchers to develop the legal framework and technical
specifications of the Belgian electronic identity card (Belpic)
2000 The Cabinet of Ministers formally decided to develop an electronic
identity card.
November
2001 The Ministry of the Interior commissioned the consultancy company CSC
to conduct a concept study
March
July A plan to develop the Belgian electronic identification card passed the
Cabinet of Ministers
A public tender for the development of the exploitation structure of the
Belpic, development of certificates and production of the card was
published. The Steria (formerly Bull N.V.) consortium won the tender.
Development
2002 The development of the exploitation structure by the Steria consortium
started. The infrastructure of the National Register and involved parties
January
had to be modified within six months.
2002 Zetes and Belgacom carried out the project to develop the card and
certificates which had a timeline of five months.
September
2003 The central government worked on the legal implementation of the
Belpic:
February
& March The sectoral committee of the National Register12 was established to
assess in concrete requests for access to personal information whether
the requirements of the legislation concerning population registration
and privacy law are met13.
Amendments to the National Register laws of 1983 and 1991 were
9
Mostly based on interviews and desk research (see also Huijboom, N.M. The influence of social capital on
joint innovation processes, forthcoming).
10 http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/information_society/l24118_en.htm
11 http://www.ibz.rrn.fgov.be/index.php?id=141&L=1
12
http://www.privacycommission.be/nl/decisions/national_register/
13
http://www.dekamer.be/FLWB/pdf/50/2226/50K2226007.pdf
made in order to be able to use the National Register as an authentic

source for electronic identity data .
2003 The first electronic identity card was presented by two ministers during
the eID Contactdag. This day was also the start of the Belpic pilot
31 March
implementation in eleven municipalities.
2003 Belpics pilot phase was finished. At that time around 55.000 electronic
identity cards had been distributed by the pilot municipalities14.
End
Implementation
2004 The decision to introduce the Belpic nation wide was made by the
Cabinet of Ministers and enacted by Royal Decree15.
March
2004 Establishment of a governmental agency responsible for the management
of the electronic identity cards. In addition, Fedict became responsible for
July
the management of the electronic identity card.
2004 The federal government organised trainings for the employees of
municipalities and provided municipalities with extra human resources
for the duration of three years16. Technical support was provided by the
Belpic helpdesk, a unit of the National Register.
Diffusion
2004 The electronic identity card was implemented in the first group of
municipalities (out of 578 municipalities)
October
2004 The electronic identity card was implemented in the second group of
December
2005 The electronic identity card was implemented in the third group of
February
2005 Some installation difficulties at municipalities were mentioned in the
Belgium parliament. Minister Dewael argued that the complaints were
based on one incident.
2006 and Increasingly critique raised on the Belpic, as a report from FEDICT
2007 showed a very low usage17. Merely 28% of the Internet users who had
and eID had used it at least one time18
2008 The disappointing usage of Belpic was confirmed by a report of the
Federal Government Agency19.
14
http://www.zdnet.be/news/38028/elektronische-identiteitskaart-vier-keer-duurder/
15
http://www.poureva.be/IMG/pdf/DOC_51_1371_021.pdf
16
Verantwoording van de algemene uitgavenbegroting, 9 November 2005,
http://www.dekamer.be/doc/flwb/pdf/51/2044/51k2044003.pdf
17
http://www.fedict.belgium.be/nl/binaries/diversiteit_tcm167-16726.pdf
18
FEDICT, Fed-e View Citizen, Longitudinaal onderzoek naar internet en eGovernment in Belgi. De
burger aan het woord, page 21-22. The most important applications for which the eID was used in 2006
concerned entrance to public spaces such as libraries and waist and recycling centres and the retrieving of
official documents at the local governments.
2009 An overview of the online services accessible through eID on the federal
eID website reveals that the number of services was in November 2009
still relatively low20. Until now only a few applications are accessible
with the Belpic solution.
2010-? Future goals are putting new services (e.g. on health) in place, integrating
the card with the social security card and herewith the stimulation of the
usage of the Belgian eID21.
3.2 Technical solution: Belpic
The Belpic card is a mandatory electronic identity (eID) card that is intended to
facilitate access to e-Government services for all Belgian citizens from the age of 12
and up (IDABC, 2009). The Belpic solution is a PKI-based smartcard solution. The
identity card itself is an Axalto Cryptoflex JavaCard with 32K memory, equipped with
a 16 bit microcontroller and an additional crypto processor (IDABC, 2009). The card
has ROM, EEPROM and RAM. A Java Applet handles all communications with the
outside world, through the interfaces described below. The eID card can be read various
kinds of smart card readers22.
Figure 3 shows the appearance of the Belgium Belpic card. Apart from personal
information, the card has a chip that contains two PKI key pairs and certificates: one for
authentication and one qualified signatures. The Belpic card is a key to the databases of
the National Register. The database of the Belgian National Register consists of a set of
authentic attributes for all Belgian citizens registered in it. Many of the attributes stored
in the authentication certificate of the Belpic card are obtained directly from the
National Register. The National Register uses a Register number, which functions as a
unique identifier for Belgian citizens in e-Government services. Apart from being the
main access key to the National Register, this number is also included as a serial
number on the certificates of the eID card. The price of the eID card ranges between 10
and 15 .
19
Federale Overheidsdienst Economie, K.M.O., Middenstand en Energie, (2008) Toekomstgerichte studie
over de potentile economische mogelijkheden van het gebruik van de elektronische identiteitskaart en de
elektronische handtekening, Brussel.
20
http://welcome-to-e-belgium.be/nl/home.php?nav=6
21
http://www.ibz.fgov.be/download/activiteitenverslag_2007/Instellingen%20en%20bevolking/55298%20Inst
ell_Bevolk_NL.pdf
22
http://www.cardreaders.be/en/default.htm
Figure 2 A typical Belgium eIDM card (Source: ZETES)
Alternatives for the Belpic card are (IDABC, 2009):

The paper federal token which can be issued to certain residents of Belgium, the
social security card (SIS-card), private sector issued certificates (e.g. Verizon),
The kids-ID, an eID card intended for children under 12.
The Belgium Cross road bank stores information about legal persons and natural
persons (entrepreneurs) in as co-called Crossroads Bank for Enterprises.
3.3 The role of trust in the Belpic innovation
H1 (PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS): Trust can be based upon personal

characteristics, such as integrity, benevolence and capabilities.
Expertise and independency were important drivers of trust in the Belpic case. The
academic persons involved in the Belpic innovation was trusted by many parties for
their independency. They did not have a direct buyer-customer relation. In addition,
their thorough academic expertise on the legal and technical aspects of eIDM was
highly valued and often mentioned as an important driver for trust. Independency and
expertise seem to be rational drivers of trust: they increase the predictability of the
trustees behaviour and therefore decrease chance of being confronted with unexpected
opportunistic behaviour.

H2 (NORMS AND VALUES): Trust can be based upon the sharing of norms and values
between individuals
In the Belpic case, shared norms and values seemed to be important to build trust. High
trusted relationships (e.g. between two former colleagues) were characterized by shared
norms and values, whereas in distrusted relationships only a few norms and values were
shared. Trust was mostly build in bilateral discussions and meetings. One of the
respondents said that trust had to be checked on a personal basis. Some norms and
values seem to be a must to share and some just as optional. Examples of necessary
values are integrity, honesty and loyalty. Values like professionalism or customer value
of eIDM systems were not always shared between the parties, but did not seem to block
cooperation.
H3 (IDENTIFICATION AND EMPATHY): The fact that people share the same
experiences, concerns and struggles appears to have a bound
No examples of identification and empathy in relation to trust were found in the Belpic
case.
H4 (ROUTINISATION): The higher the routinisation (more knowledge and experience)

in actions of a person the more predictable the actions of that person and the more trust
people have in the reliability of that person
Routinisation seemed to be an important mechanism to build interpersonal trust. For
example, the consortium partners of the Steria consortium knew each for a long time. It
helped to reduce the complexity of working together with so many parties.
H5 (TRANSFERABILITY OF TRUST): Trust is transferable between individuals

There were no particular cases of transferability of trust found in the Belpic case.
3.3.2 What factors change trust over time?
H6 (CONTROL IN ABSENCE OF TRUST): When trust is absent, individuals are forced

to assess the competences and opportunism of the other
The Belpic cases had some serious incidents of distrust originating from conflicts. It
seems that in these situations control was taken in several ways. First, the integrity of
actions is assessed extensively and opportunistic behaviour is directly opposed with
consequential behaviour of the other. For example, when manager X intentionally asks
too much money for a service, manager Y will show the superiors X that this money is
not substantiated. Second, escalation was an important mechanism in case of distrust.
Although bilateral meetings are important to solve conflicts, several cases were solved
using the organisational hierarchy within the Belgian administration, even up to the
highest level when necessary.
H7 (UNMET EXPECTATIONS): A decline of trust between individuals can emerge in

case one of the involved parties does not live up to the expectations of the other
No particular cases of unmet expectations decreasing trust were found.
H8 (JOINT SOLUTION OF CONFLICT): the joint solution of conflict can enhance and
deepen trust
Solving conflicts helped to build trust, after it was lost. There were many technical
difficulties in the Belpic innovation, e.g. with the installation of the card readers.
Consequently, the National Register often came with change requests for the Steria
consortium. Interviews revealed that adequately solving those problems helped the
Steria consortium to gain trust at the National Register.

H9 (HIERARCHY): In the case of a low level of trust during joint innovation, trust is
compensated by mechanisms of hierarchy
As described earlier, escalation up the organisational hierarchy was an important

instrument in case there was not enough trust to solve issues person-to-person.
Although it solved the problem, it did not enhance the trust between the two persons. In
this case, the solution implied a winner and a loser, whereas in solving joined conflicts
(Hypothesis 8) no one explicitly loses.
H10 (LEGAL MECHANISMS): In the case of a low level of trust during joint
innovation, trust is compensated by legal mechanisms, e.g. contracts
Respondents explicitly mentioned contracts or in a weaker form joint statements as
both a compensation of trust and a driver of trust. At beginning of Belpic, two CIOs had
to work in the same organisation. As there was no tie between them, they made their
own contract (or co-existence agreement), in which they agreed on their task division. It
helped to make their collaboration more predictable and therefore increased
interpersonal trust. The contract had also an external function: they showed their own
organisation and external parties that they were cooperating and not easily to be
separated. As one of the CIOs said: the contract made a strong coalition of us. We
have a very strong tie now.
H11 (TRUSTED THIRD PARTY): In the case of a low level of trust during joint
innovation, trust is compensated by putting a third party / opinion in place
There was one case of a trusted third party. To ensure that the Steria consortium will
meet its obligations, the National Register hired a consultant to monitor and assess the
contract. Presumably, the trust in this consultant was not high enough as the National
Register fired the consultant shortly.
H12 (CREATIVITY): Trust is a necessary requisite for creativity in a team

Interviews revealed that creative or innovative solutions can be blocked by others for
irrational reasons. Looking closer, it seems that there was not enough interpersonal trust
between the cooperating parties. In the Belpic case, such a situation occurred when the
idea for an additional barcode on the eID card was blocked.
H13 (MOTIVATIONAL CONTROL): In the case of a low level of trust during joint
innovation, trust is compensated by motivational control, such as (financial) incentives
Motivational control was very apparent in the Belpic case. Especially, the buyer-
supplier relation was used for motivational control. For example, the Belpic tenders
were important for consultants to gain access to the European eIDM systems markets.
The buyer was aware of this dependency and could optimally control the buyer-supplier
relationship. This was opposed by the more independent position of the academics. As
one of the respondents stated: Consultants would do a lot to please the customer, but
researchers are not directly paid and are therefore not that dependent. It must be
noted that academic parties can be dependent in other ways, e.g. in reputation, data
availability or visibility.
H14 (BRIDGING DEVIATING INTERESTS): Trust is a precondition for the ability of

bridging deviating interests.
In one case, respondents said trust was needed to bring in an opposing opinion. For
example, a consultancy firm needs a strong trust relation with their customer to
persuade them to agree on a critical report. However, in the Belpic case there was not
enough trust and the consultancy firm was fired.
H15 (RISKS): Trust is a precondition for the willingness of jointly taking risks.
Organisational complexity was an important risk for suppliers in the Belpic case, as
they had to work with many different parties in their consortium. They needed to have a
high level of trust among them to efficiently work together.
H OTHER (EFFICIENCY)
Apart from the hypotheses, respondents stated that trust had a very positive effect on the
speed of the innovation process and on accessing knowledge within the social network.
For example, it was easier to agree and get things done in the inter-organisational teams
that highly trusted each other.
4 Austria: Brgerkarte
4.1 Introduction

process in Austria23.
Initiation
1999 The e-Europe initiative of the European Commission put the Information
Society high on the Austrian political agenda
1999 The Austrian Secure Information Technology Centre (A-SIT) was
founded as a National Confirmation Body, which was required by the e-
Signature Act.24
1999 The Austrian government officially decided to use smart card technology
in order to simplify their citizens official business25.
November
2000 The e-Europe initiative led to the initiative e-Austria in e-Europe26.
2000 The Federal Ministry for Public Service and Sports set up the Task Force
e-Austria, existing of leading experts, to implement the e-Austria in e-
Europe project27. The development of a Brgerkarte or citizen card28
was one of the significant e-government projects of the taskforce.
2001 An ICT board to coordinate e-government services was established29. The
members were the Chief Information Officers (CIOs) of the Ministries,
June
who were nominated by their respective ministers. Working groups were
formed to provide advice and assistance to ministries, provinces, cities
and local authorities. One of those working groups concerned the
development of an eIDM system for government services to citizens.
Development
2001 The federal chancellery established the ICT Strategy Unit30, which
existed of a technical unit which developed applications, a public
relations unit which was responsible for the marketing of the applications
and an administrative unit which dealt with internal procedures. This unit
developed the PKI infrastructure for the Brgerkarte.
2002 The providing of certificates was mandated to the company A-Trust,
which is a shared service provider of several Austrian banks and
23
24
http://www.a-sit.at/pdfs/About_ASIT_2009_en_MH.pdf;
25
http://www.acsac.org/2002/papers/22.pdf
26
http://is.jrc.ec.europa.eu/pages/ISG/documents/Austria_000.pdf
27
http://www.eipa.eu/files/repository/eipascope/scop2001_Special_ENGLISH.pdf
28
http://www.sibis-eu.org/files/D4-2_Annex.pdf
29
http://ec.europa.eu/idabc/servlets/Doc?id=1305
30
ftp://ftp.freenet.at/beh/buergerkartegrundlagen.pdf
companies and thus far the only accredited and certified trust centre in
Austria according to EU law.
2002 The inspection and approval of Brgerkarte certificates, signature creation
devices and underlying infrastructure was mandated to A-SIT31.
2002 The Austrian government established the Central Residents Register, in
which all Austrian residents are registered and assigned a unique personal
identification number (PIN). This PIN is one of the key identifiers used
by the application of the Brgerkarte concept.32
Implementation
2002 The first pilot project with the Brgerkarte concept was launched in 2002
2003 by the Austrian Computer Society (ACS)33. The electronic ID cards were
issued by the ACS from 24 February 2003 on, in cooperation with A-
Trust and the ICT Strategy Unit of the Federal Chancellery34.
2004 The Master card of several Austrian Banks and the student chip card of
the Vienna University of Economics and Business became Brgerkarte
prepared35.
2004 The Austrian Parliament passed e-Government legislation building a legal
framework for the Brgerkarte.
2005 A mobile application (A1) for citizen authentication became available as
well as the social security card, which included the possibility to activate
the Brgerkarte function.
End of The contracts of the employees of the ICT Strategy Unit terminated. It
2005 was decided to continue some of the work in a unit called Chief
Information Office under the Federal Chancellery and to mandate the
technical work to EGIZ, a new established unit of the Technical
University of Graz.
2005 The ICT Board was replaced by the platform Digital Austria in which
Autumn the counties and municipalities were also represented36.
Diffusion
2007 The take-up by citizens was behind expectations: 20.000 Brgerkarten
had been activated, whereas the government had planned 50.000 by
200637.
2008 The federal Chancellery undertook several actions to stimulate take-up:
A large campaign started to encourage students to use their students
ID card as Brgerkarte by giving them free card-readers. Acceptance
rate was limited due to privacy concerns.
31
http://www.asit.at/pdfs/About_ASIT_2009_en_MH.pdf
32
http://ec.europa.eu/idabc/en/document/4486/5584
33
http://www.rechtsprobleme.at/doks/burgerkarte-gerstbach.pdf
34
http://www.epractice.eu/en/news/284155
35
http://www.rechtsprobleme.at/doks/burgerkarte-gerstbach.pdf
36
http://www.epractice.eu/en/document/288171
37
http://www2.argedaten.at/php/cms_monitor.php?q=PUB-TEXT-ARGEDATEN&s=18047gle
The federal chancellery participated in eGovernment conferences to

explain and promote the Brgerkarte among service providers.
A-SIT published many flyers and instruction videos38 on the
Brgerkarte.
A Brgerkarte website39 was launched.
2008 The eCard of the social security institutions fully replaces the traditional
signatures40 and new legislation simplified the issuance of the Brgerkarte
January
2008 The first version of the new online citizen card middleware architecture
MOCCA was released41. This middleware aimed to lower usage
November
thresholds by making the software more user-friendly.
2009 120.000 Brgerkarte certificates are issued and only few services were
available through the Burkerkarte concept
November
2010 - ? The future diffusion, maintenance and development of the Brgerkarte
concept is coordinated by the Chief Information Office of the Federal
Chancellery42. Diffusion will focus on offering more services and
stimulating citizens to activate the Brgerkarte functionality. Also the
participation of the Austrian government in European projects such as
STORK will have a strong priority.
4.2 Technical solution: Brgerkarte
The Brgerkarte is a technology-neutral concept that allows for different technical

solutions. It is a concept rather than a specific token, which defines minimal
requirements that an eID token needs to fulfill. The most important requirements are:
(1) qualified electronic signatures and (2) storage of the identity link or electronic
mandates. Generally, most of the tokens are prepared technically, but the activation of a
token as a citizen card is voluntary (except the professions card). Several tokens of the
Brgerkarte eID are available (IDABC, 2009): (1) each bank card issued since March
2005, (2) the health-insurance card (e-card) (3) professions cards (e.g. notaries or
pharmacists), (4) public officials service cards, or (5) student service cards of
universities. From 2004 to 2008 mobile phones could be used as a token.
The Brgerkarte combines PKI-based electronic signatures as a means of authentication

and identification. The Central Register of Residents provides a unique source of
identification for registered residents and is linked to the Brgerkarte. A supplementary
register allows for integration of foreign natural persons that are not covered otherwise.
Registration of organisations is covered by the Commercial Register, the Central
Register of Associations and a Supplementary Register of Other Data Subjects. The
Brgerkarte uses an unique sourcePIN solution (see figure 4): The Brgerkarte uses a
sector-specific identification model that enforces data protection aspects for natural
38
http://www.asit.at/de/dokumente_publikationen/videos/index.php
39
http://www.buergerkarte.at/en/index.html
40
41
42
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VB34T0FF98
2&_user=603085&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=10
90110470&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000031079&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=603085
&md5=b345d0ab93053ea6e50118980b670861
persons is used. The core element is a so-called identity link The identity link is an
attestation signed by the authority that links a citizens qualified electronic signature to
the unique identifier sourcePIN derived from the base registers. The sourcePIN may
only be stored in the identity link in the citizen card, thus is under sole control of the
citizen (IDABC, 2009).
SourcePIN-Register
Every Person has a sourcePIN

The sourcePIN of natural persons may
sourcePIN of Prohazka, Frantiek: 2411
1. price 14.12.2005 in Madrid for at no time be stored by the authorities as
best practice of data protection of an identification feature
all European Administrations
Source PIN 2411
Central Register of
Residents
Sector specific personal
irreversible identifier (ssPIN) Register
service sector number
Central Register of
Residents: 109
+ cryptographic hash
derivation = of residence: 7011
Prohazka, Frantiek Matching
impossible
2411
Ministry of
Each administrational Finance
unit has its own Sector specific personal
service sector number irreversible identifier (ssPIN) ministry
Service sector number
Tax authority 911 + cryptographic hash
derivation
= of finance: 8924
Prohazka, Frantiek
Matching
2411
impossible
University
Sector specific personal
identifier (ssPIN): 1818
irreversible
Matriculation number: 356
+ cryptographic hash
derivation = Prohazka, Frantiek
Figure 3 Overview of the sourcePIN system (Source: Siemens, 2009)
The sourcePIN Register Authority (which is the data protection and privacy
commission) provides services in connection with the sector-specific eIDM model. The
sourcePIN model allows data exchange between sectors without involvement of the
citizen where such data exchanges are admissible. The unique identifiers sourcePIN and
also the sector-specific PINs are legally protected by the eGovernment Act (IDABC,
2009).
The token itself is a secure signature-creation device that contains (IDABC, 2009):
a qualified electronic signature (i.e. the signature-creation data and a qualified
certificate)
an identity link is issued by the sourcePIN Register Authority.
the sourcePIN which is the citizens unique identifier from the CRR
the citizens name and date of birth
data that links the identity link to the qualified certificate stored on the token
the signature of the sourcePIN Register Authority
The token has two PKI-based key pairs a qualified signature for authentication and
the second key pair for electronic signatures or encryption. Just the qualified certificate
is needed for the citizen card function. The certificates are provided by the private
sector certification service provider A-Trust.
4.3 The role of trust in the Brgerkarte innovation

Expertise (a personal trait) was very important in the Austrian case. If a stakeholder in
the innovation process did not have the right capabilities, trust was low (happened in 2
cases). One of the respondents argued that trust in expertise is important in lower
hierarchical levels: In lower levels: it is more trust in expertise, expertise at higher
level does not matter so much, assume people dont really understand. In higher level it
is trust in decision power and broad network.
between individuals
Several respondents stated that shared norms, values and interests were highly
important for trusted relationships. For example, members of one of the teams in the
Brgerkarte project described themselves as young, enthusiastic and tolerant, which
increased trust within the team. Respecting cultural values seemed to be important as
well. One respondent visited each county involved in the Brgerkarte project to show
them their interest and respect in their cultural values, which was according to her an
important driver for trust.

have a bound
Affective factors (such as identification and empathy) were not often mentioned to
influence trust. However, a respondent said that you can just have the feeling that you
can trust somebody. This is more intuition perspective on trust.
H4 (ROUTINISATION):
reliability of that person
Like the Belgian Belpic case, routinisation seems to be a very important mechanism for
building trust. The basis for the intense and good collaboration within the technical
team of the Federal Chancellery was rooted in the previous cooperation at the Technical
University of Graz. One of the respondents stated: During my master thesis we had a
good opportunity to trust each other, after 6 or 8 months, we had good trust
relationship. The intense collaboration on defining and developing the eIDM system
increased the trust in the team. As one of the respondents stated: Everybody knows
each other and for about 10 months you make a project and meet more often as a
reason for high trust in the team. Difficult situations (e.g. technical barriers) helped to
test the predictability of behaviour. One of the stakeholders entered the Brgerkarte
project in a later stage. Several respondents did not trust this person, because his
presence was abrupt and they found it hard to explain his behaviour. One of the
respondents at the Federal Chancellery stated that he trusted a specific stakeholder at
the Ministry of Finance, because he worked with him (routinisation).
Trust is transferable between individuals
Transferability of trust occurred within high trust teams. One of the respondents stated:
If you have a core team with trust relation, it is easier to trust external bodies, with the
knowledge that your personal trust partners trust some body else. The trusted team
members formed a first basis to decide if somebody could be trusted: it was for me the
first thing to decide whether I could trust the person or not. It helped a lot in first
contact phase.

of the other
Respondents stated that in case of a trust relationship there was no need to assess
opportunistic behaviour (e.g. playing games as they described it). In case of distrust,
they assessed the integrity of the others statements and actions and clearly planned
their own statements and actions. One of the respondents explained: There were a lot
of political issues and we have to be careful in meetings: what can I tell them? What
not? We had to consider before meetings: what should we say? What not? Is this the
right timing? This behaviour can slow down the innovation process, e.g. by slowing
down decision making and consuming too much relational transaction costs: (in case
of low trust) there is a little decision how you can develop towards decision. You can
explore this before you go there.
does not live up to the expectations of the other
How often someone changes his or her opinion is an important hampering factor for
interpersonal trust. A few respondents stated that one of the key stakeholders in the
Brgerkarte case changes his opinion on the Brgerkarte very often. It is hard to predict
his or her actions (routinisation) and often he does not meet the expectations of all
stakeholders. For example, this happened when new software modules of the
Brgerkarte were developed. As one of the respondents put it: He has good ideas, but
when he has the idea he wants to realize it and next day he has a new idea or (no
trust because) he jumps around with new technologies.

The joint solution of conflict can enhance and deepen trust
As described in Hypothesis 4 (routinisation), keeping your word even in hard
circumstances is an important test for trust. For example: (I trust them because) they
kept their word and also in very hard circumstances. Solving a severe conflict can be
fairly effective. One respondent made an agreement after a fight: for three years he
did not do it. I trust him, he can count on me: I will never say something in public on
certificates.
H9 (HIERARCHY):
mechanisms of hierarchy
Hierarchy was clearly recognized as a compensation for trust: you have personal trust
and trust you have to obey or in other words you have to trust or without it you have to
follow the hierarchical norms. We found institutionalization in the Brgerkarte case
when government agencies from different organizations needed to cooperate and there
was not a basis of trust that the ICT board would recognize all interests. For example,
there were 15 to 20 working groups in which central and local government dealt with
specific issues around e-government. Another example is the integration of the ICT
Strategy Unit into the Federal chancellery. As one respondent puts it: A reason that
some people dont want to have the taskforce on same level is that they want to control
it, under their power. A necessary prerequisite for trust is the backing of a superior for
decision making. As one of the respondents puts it: trust in the influence of people:
decision power is necessary. So, top managements support seems to be an important
basis for trust. On the other hand, when trust is present, hierarchical measures were not
necessary in the Austrian case. One of the managers said that trust made him feel like
one of the team members instead of a superior: I trusted everyone and from hierarchy
point of view I was not superior, but one of them.

mechanisms, e.g. contracts
Respondents see contracts, agreements and official minutes as signs of distrust. Some
did not want to work at all with contracts, because it diminishes the role of trust: it
wont work out. I dont want contracts, I want trust, I build network with people I trust.
Its my character; I can not play a role.

putting a third party / opinion in place
We found no specific instances of trusted third partiers in the Brgerkarte case.
H12 (CREATIVITY):
Trust is a necessary requisite for creativity in a team
The technical developers of the Brgerkarte case, working at the Federal chancellery,
stated that the high level of trust allowed them to work efficiently and in a creative way.
As one of the respondents stated: it made us definitely more efficient, it is place of
work no need act politically at least in our unit,

motivational control, such as (financial) incentives
Market mechanisms make the interests of parties clearer and therefore less susceptible
for opportunistic behaviour. A-trust saw itself out of scope of political interests: for
them I am private party, not playing in there game. Commercial goals are often clear
and can be used as a control mechanism. Again the motivations of private parties and
academia are different (e.g. selling certain products vs. experimenting and innovation),
but in both cases present.

Trust is a precondition for the ability of bridging deviating interests
Within the team of developers in the Federal chancellery, everybody was able to
express his own ideas. Status (hierarchical mechanism) did not play such an important
role due to the presence of trust. However: only the best ideas prevailed, not part of
who had the idea. If you had the right idea and right arguments you had it. Trust was
also needed to bridge the technical and legal aspects of the Brgerkarte: if we would
not have a good relationship, it would not function: it was a problem of putting the
technical and legal part together
H15 (RISKS):
Trust is a precondition for the willingness of jointly taking risks
The Austrian eIDM system is technically, legally and organisationally complex.
Therefore, the risks of spilling resources was very high and trust was needed. One of the
respondents stated If you can not trust, you wont spend money or time with him in the
project.

H OTHER: CLOSURE
In the absence of trust, people will try to keep the distrusted person out of decisions in
the innovation process. This group closure occurred in the Brgerkarte. For example,
one of the members of the ICT Strategy Unit said: he (one of the CIOs) tried to not to
involve him (a rival CIO) in each and every decision he made, he tried to do so by
making decisions not only in the official board, but also in internal meetings where
officials met regularly, he makes decisions in the network.
5 Finland: VETUMA
5.1 Introduction

process in Finland43.
Initiation
2002 Two government practitioners of the municipalities Vantaa44 and Espoo45
developed the idea to create an eIDM system.
2003 The municipalities of Helsinki46 and Kaunianen47 became involved
2003 The founding members decided to involve the Information Society
program of the Prime Ministers Office
March
2003 Two new laws were enacted:
the Act on Electronic Services and Communication in the Public
Sector48: to improve smoothness and rapidity of services and
communication as well as information security in the administration,
in the courts and other judicial organs and in the enforcement
authorities by promoting the use of electronic data transmission49.
the Act on Electronic Signatures50: to promote the use of electronic
signatures and the supply of products and services relating to them
and to enhance the information security and data protection in the
field of electronic commerce and electronic services51.
Development
2004 A steering group and project group were established. In the steering group
were representatives of the Ministry of the Interior (JUHTA), Ministry of
Finance, the four initiating municipalities and the Information Society
Programme. In the project group were the municipalities, JUHTA and the
overall project management was with the city of Vantaa. One of the key
activities of the project group was the definition of tender specifications
for the procurement of an eIDM system.
43
44
http://www.vantaa.fi/i_etusivu.asp?path=1
45
http://www.espoo.fi/
46
http://www.hel.fi/wps/portal/Helsinki_en?WCM_GLOBAL_CONTEXT=/Helsinki/en/Etusivu
47
http://www.kauniainen.fi/
48
http://www.finlex.fi/pdf/saadkaan/E0030013.PDF
49
50
http://www.finlex.fi/en/laki/kaannokset/2003/en20030014.pdf
51
2005 In a strategic document of the project group, published in February

200552, one of the leading requirements is defined, namely that the
February
VETUMA platform should support several electronic identification
systems to provide services to citizens, such as the FINEID card, bank
solutions (such as TUPAS), mobile and username and password
authentication.
2005 In the development phase, there were two important discussions:
A similar eIDM system for the Finnish Tax Administration, Ministry
of Labour and the Social Insurance Institution of Finland53 - called
KATSO54 - could not be used for the purposes of VETUMA.
The Finnish law requires organisations to jointly submit a call for
tenders55. For ministries, Hansel Ltd56 is the central procurement, but
in 2005, there was not a central procurement unit for municipalities.
2005 Helsinki was able to publish the bid on behalf of the VETUMA team,
Fujitsu was awarded the project57.
October
2006 Fujitsu developed the first version of VETUMA and in the first pilots
were launched in a pilot group of municipalities. Based on the evaluation
Spring
the system was improved and ready for the implementation of the first
services.
Implementation
2006 One of the first electronic services which made use of the VETUMA
platform was the tennis court payment of the city of Helsinki58
Begin
2006 - Other municipalities started to use VETUMA for the provision of online
2007 services to citizens. Fujitsu presented the VETUMA solution during
several gatherings of municipalities in Finland.59 In addition, the project
group launched a website on which municipalities could find information
on how to implement and use the VETUMA solution60. Fujitsu provided
trainings to municipalities on how to use VETUMA
2006 - Discussions emerged on the ownership and financing of VETUMA.
Information Society Programme had stated that the central government
52
InternaldocuementofthecitiesofEspoo,Vantaa,HelsinkiandKaunianen;LondbladAhonen,
A.andT.Karakorpi,reportonthegovernanceandfundingofVETUMA,February2005,
paragraph2.2.
53

http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/ict_psp/documents/eid_good_practices_modinis
_study.pdf
54
https://www.tunnistus.fi/,
55
http://www.finlex.fi/fi/laki/kaannokset/1992/en19921505.pdf
56
http://www.hansel.fi/en/activities/publicprocurement
57
Seepowerpoint,TapaniPuisto,GovernmentITservicecenter,StateTreasury,page2
58
https://asp.innofactor.com/hkiliikunta/EnrolmentClient/calendarselect.aspx
59
Seeforinstance
http://www.huoltovarmuus.fi/documents/7/Verkkotunnistautuminen_Jukka%20Keso.pdf
60

http://www.suomi.fi/suomifi/laatuaverkkoon/asiointi_ja_lomakkeet/sahkoinen_asiointi/verkkotun
nistaminen_ja_maksaminen/
2007 was willing to pay a substantial part of the VETUMA development and
implementation, but this programme would end in 2007.
2006 Several systems were already integrated in VETUMA, such as the
FINEID card identification, the TUPAS identification of the banks and
2007
the next step would be to also integrate mobile identification into the
platform. However, the Finnish organisation for Telecom Operators,
faced several problems.
2007 Fifteen services of government entities were available61 making use of the
VETUMA platform. A statistical analysis of the ministry of Finance
showed that in 2007 over 80% of the citizens who used the VETUMA
platform to obtain a government service used it in combination with the
TUPAS online identification solution of the banks62.
Diffusion
2008 34 government organisations had joined up the VETUMA project.63
Ministry of Finance together with Fujitsu continued to present the
January
solution during seminars across Finland, to stimulate government
organisations to join up.
2008 The National Audit Office published a critical report on Finnish eIDM
systems64. The main conclusions & recommendations:
January
development of eIDM systems has been inefficient due to the lack of
central coordination and presence of competition between several
eIDM systems.
development and operating costs of eIDM systems were from in total
approximately 40 million euro. Stronger coordination could have
reduced this expenditure.
more uniform and streamlined operation and monitoring of online
identity management is needed.
2009 The VETUMA project moved from the VALT IT Department of the
Ministry of Finance to the State IT Service Centre of the State Treasury65.
2009 The VETUMA solution was used by around 60 government
organisations66
Spring
2009 A new tender was published for the further development of the VETUMA
platform.67 Plans included that the VETUMA service would be made
June
interoperable with other identity services (e.g. KATSO system)68.
September The Act on Electronic Authentication and Signatures came into force69,
2009 which implied that all service providers offering strong eIDM services
will fall under the supervision, controls and new regulations70.
61
Seehttp://www.vtv.fi/files/145/161_2008_Tunnistuspalvelut_NETTI.pdf
62
http://b2cpro.vtt.fi/documents/seminar/b2cproseminaarimikkola.pdf
63
http://www.fujitsu.com/fi/services/sahkoinenasiointi/
64
http://www.vtv.fi/files/135/1622008_Metsahallitus_NETTI.pdf
65
http://www.statskontoret.fi/public/Default.aspx?culture=svFI&contentlan=3&nodeid=15808,see
http://www.icait.org/conf43/docs/Conf43_The_Status_of_ICT_in_Governments_2009.pdf,page4
66
67
http://www.hankintailmoitukset.fi/sv/notice/search/?all=1
68
2010 - ? More legislative changes are anticipated to change the Finnish eIDM
landscape in 2010. A new Population Register Act, the amendments to the
Passport Act and a totally new Identity Act are under preparation at the
Ministry of Interior and will come into force in 201071. Most of these
changes are still underway and not currently implemented in practice
today. Mobile PKI services are most likely to appear soon in the Finnish
eIDM market as well as Open ID. The future of the FINEID card is still
unclear. By the end of December 2009, Citizen Certificates had been
issued to a total of 286,000 people72. There are no concrete plans to boost
its adoption among citizens.
5.2 Technical solution: VETUMA
VETUMA system is a Citizen-to-Government service, which offers identification and

authentication to National and Local eGovernment services. It is not a single
identification solution, but combines different eID solutions to identify and authenticate
citizens for services. VETUMA service includes e-identification (e-Signatures) by
Finnish national eID cards (FINEID), individual pin codes (PIN-TAN codes) of the
biggest e-banks in Finland (TUPAS) and mobile identification of the two biggest
Finnish mobile operator's services (IDABC, 2009). The FINEID solution of the
Population Register Center (PRC) is a strong (PKI-based) authentication method.
TUPAS has a lower security level, but will be upgraded to PKI in the near future.
Most people use TUPAS for authentication and even for signatures. A also user can
authenticate oneself using the paper token in a number of applications that are
integrated into either the VETUMA service, using a two-factor authentication (IDABC,
2009).
Figure 4 (see next page) shows how the VETUMA system works in practice73. The
VETUMA authentication service for citizens is integrated into different communal
websites in order to users to access eServices. VETUMA system verifies the users
credentials through an LDAP framework offered by either PRC or the users bank
service. Upon successful authentication by either of the services, the end user can
access the local service. The user visits the communal website to access a local portal,
which redirects the user to the VETUMA authentication service website, from where
the user is identified by querying the Population Information System (in case of
FINEID) or the users bank service (TUPAS). When authentication is successful, the
VETUMA service logs in the end user at the local Internet service.
69
http://www.epractice.eu/en/news/293726and
http://www.ficora.fi/en/index/viestintavirasto/uutiset/2009/P_32.html
70
71
72
In2009theTUPASidentificationsystemstilldominatedtheFinnisheIDMpractice.InJuly2009,
theTUPAStokenswereusedupto99%aseIDtoobtainonlinegovernmentservices
73
Adopted from www.suomi.fi/vetuma and IDABC
Figure 4 Progress diagram of how a user authenticate, identify and pay with the VETUMA service
5.3 The role of trust in the VETUMA innovation

Personal capabilities were important. In specific, technical and legal expertise were
important sources for trust. For example, expertise played a role in the buyer-supplier
relationship with Fujitsu services. Interestingly, some of the respondents said that trust
in expertise is stronger than hierarchical trust: In Finland we dont care who says
something, but what he says. This egalitarian view is in line with the high level of trust
in Finland.
between individuals.
Having the same interests was an important prerequisite for trust. The municipalities
and central government agencies shared the interest to deploy the VETUMA system on
a larger scale. Most stakeholders said that this shared interest or vision was present in
the initiation phase of the project. However, respondents hardly mentioned the role of
shared values, except honesty (which is obviously strongly related hypothesis 7: unmet
expectations) and being a professional. However, they mentioned trust as a social norm
in Finland a lot. It seemed that the fact that Finland is a high trust country came not as a
surprise for them. The social norm of openness (e.g. no hidden agendas) was appointed
as a result of the high level of trust in Finland.

have a bound.
Identification and empathy showed to be very important in the early phases of the
innovation. The two project managers at the municipalities of Vantaa and Espoo
struggled with the same problem: there was no common identification mechanism for
their e-Government services, which hampered service innovation. Although they
worked for many years together, this critical concern brought them together.
Additionally, the project managers stated that they went through many things (in other
words experiences) together: We have worked for so long, and made so many things
together. In the contrast, distrust raised when the ministry of finance had to take over
the ownership of VETUMA in the implementation phase. Some initial team members
doubted if the ministry of finance shared the same concern (and passion) for VETUMA
as the manager of the Information Society programme. One respondent described his
trust with another team member as chemistry: a quick and implicit feeling that he
could rely on this person. This intuition for trust was also observed in the Austrian case.
H4 (ROUTINISATION):
The four municipalities in the Helsinki region have been working together on ICT
projects for decades. This working experience that resulted in a network of strong ties
was essential in the initiation phase of the project: Trust played a role especially in the
planning phase, it was not just that we were geographically close, we knew each other
very well from different working groups, so sure trust was important. In the initial
planning team everybody knew each other: it affected yes, because I knew them almost
everybody in a way, at least in a name, easy to join the group. These routinized strong
ties helped to speed up the project in the beginning: It helped a lot in, without it we did
not get to fly. Knowing each other very well can have a negative effect as well.
According
VETUMAs project manager was very well connected and known in the Finnish
government ICT world. Therefore, she was a linking pin for most project members
throughout the whole VETUMA project: Anna was the common background for all of
us. Transferability of trust seemed to be a mechanism here: that a new project member
knew the project manager was seen as a qualifier for trust.

of the other.
There were only a few occasions in the VETUMA project where trust was low. First,
trust was in general low between the VETUMA project team and the KATSO project
team, when VETUMA was not able to join their procurement process. The secretary of
the VETUMA and legal experts were investigating and assessing the possibilities, but
did not succeed in making an agreement. The individual members of the VETUMA
team dealt with care in communicating with the members of the KATSO consortium:
We thought carefully which info we gave to which organisations, but communication
in our core group was open. Some respondents mentioned that distrust did not happen
at all, because of the process op group closure before the collaboration starts. One
respondent said: I would not do something (innovative) with someone I do not trust.
does not live up to the expectations of the other.
Strangely, despite the initial urgence expressed by the Helsinki region municipalities,
the number of e-Government services that use VETUMA identification is still lagging
behind. The expectation was that some large municipalities that were pressing
innovation in the start already had services on the shelf waiting for VETUMA. These
unmet expectations decreased trust in the diffusion phase of the VETUMA project: in
the working group Project Manager X always said that their time schedule is so rapid,
have to have it (VETUMA) fast. Now it is 4 or 5 years after these statements and
VETUMA has still not been implemented. We trusted that their signal that it will be
implemented, but that is not the case. So, it is important to meet the individual
expectations expressed at the start of a project. When expectations are not met due to
barriers, these have to be timely and explicitly communicated.

There were not that many conflicts in the VETUMA case. The large conflict between
the VETUMA and KATSO consortium was not solved in the end. The reasons why
there were not many conflicts can be the generally high level oftrust in Finland,
presence of group closure and the bottom-up approach of the project. Most respondents
stated that trust is already there when collaboration starts anyway. Next, due to the
bottom-up approach at the beginning people that did not trust each other by forehand
were not hierarchically forced to cooperate. A downside of such a voluntary and
bottom-up approach is the lack of coordination between different bottom-up eIDM
initiatives (e.g. KATSO and VETUMA system) as stated by the Audit report.
H9 (HIERARCHY):
mechanisms of hierarchy
The VETUMA team consisted of two groups: a project team and a management board.
These organisational structures were seen as an institutionalization of trust: the whole
system that you have committees, working groups and agendas, therefore I would not
do something without trust. Respondents were aware of hierarchical mechanism, such
as escalation, that can compensate trust. The openness of communication between all
individuals (e.g. between the project board and the management board) was an enabler
for hierarchical mechanisms. One of the respondents said: It is such an open area, if
someone is doing so (opportunistic behaviour), it is clear that also his or her boss will
know about it. So, creating an open environment, in which all hierarchical layers can
follow the innovation process enables hierarchical mechanisms for trust.

The trust between the parties working on VETUMA was high. As a consequence
respondents did not feel the need for formal minutes: When you have trust you dont
have to put everything on paper, everybody knew I would do it, informal, not on paper.
Minutes were actually made, but had a technical communication function: during
formal follow up meetings there are minutes written, but these are mostly technical:
everything is written down as specifications. Specifically, no contracts or formal
minutes were made before the procurement of the system (so initiation phase). One
respondent recognized the absence of contracts and minutes as a problem: some people
expect that you have all agreements on paper, but we did not. Sometimes watch dogs
(e.g. political parties, inspectors, auditors) have distrust and when you do not agree you
can show that on paper. This refers to the state audit commission that assessed the
identity management infrastructure in Finland. That high trust can lead to an absence of
legal mechanisms can be problematic for the accountability and transparency of an
eIDM project.

Within the VETUMA innovation process there was no such case of a trusted third party.
On a national scale of Finnish eIDM systems there was. The distrust between the
KATSO and VETUMA consortia hampered innovation: it made the Finnish eIDM
landscape fragmented and too expensive. The state audit commission came between
both teams in the role of a trusted third party. This did not help to increase trust, but it
stimulated the innovation process in general: after the state audit report it was decided
to integrate the KATSO system into VETUMA.
H12 (CREATIVITY):
Trust is a necessary requisite for creativity in a team.
No specific comments were made on the creativity of the team. However, it was
described that a high level of trust stimulated cooperation. As one of the VETUMA
team members stated: There was a high level of trust. We had a perfect a group and
collaboration was good.

Motivational controls did compensate trust, but increased trust. One of the influential
members in the management board of VETUMA gained trust of stakeholders by giving
them incentives. For example, an IT manager of one of the municipalities was offered
to go to an international conference to promote VETUMA, which was actually one of
her responsibilities. Next, a prize (in the form of a medal) was given to show respect
and trust.

Although trust was high, interests were not always the same. For example, the ministry
of interior was also committed to the FINEID card, the banks to their TUPAS
identification measure and the telecom operators to their mobile ID solution. However,
the high level of trust created openness: there were not really closed agendas between
the individuals: In project group we can give our opinions freely.
Trust allowed the VETUMA project members to discuss their interests and concerns
openly without damaging the interpersonal relation: If there were problems we could
discuss them, if we want it or something new, we could tell it and a respondent that
worked with the management board: we might have loud discussions, but we have still
a close relationship. Somebody coming from outside the group or from different culture
(e.g. low trust), will say that we would be arguing and would not lead to anything.
Another respondent said that everybody could see their role / interest: I did understand
the role of some people, and they are acting by their roles. ...we have very tight
discussions going on, but we can change the roles, no problem. There is a basis for
trust. So, interpersonal trust enables open communication within a project group,
which makes it easier to come to a consensus.
H15 (RISKS):
The deployment of the VETUMA eIDM system was a risky business. Respondents for
example, said that there were privacy or hacking risks. To bear these risks, it was
important that that the VETUMA stakeholders could rely on each other, even when
difficulties in the project happened. Specific examples are difficulties with procurement
law or the slow take-up of VETUMA by services. Fujitsus business model was also
based on trust: the government agencies should pay per user instead of a fixed amount
for the development and implementation of the VETUMA system. This means a high
risk for Fujitsu when the number of users lags behind.
H OTHER (CLOSURE)
A question that was raised several times is: how open is the high level of trust organised
in the VETUMA project? Are distrusted people from the start avoided? One can
conclude that there were signs of group closure (e.g. see hypothesis 6). As one of the
respondents puts it: We Finnish people are not so open, outgoing, and when we are
around the table we have same issue. When we come at same table, trust is not the issue
at all. We wont have them at the table if we do not trust them. We just will not work
together. So, to what extent are groups of individuals with high trust really open? Is
this potential closure not a potential risk to the innovation process?

6 Netherlands: DIGID
6.1 Introduction

process in the Netherlands74.
Initiation
1999 The Ministry of the Interior had been developing a nation wide Public
Key Infrastructure (PKI) for the identification and authentication of
citizens and businesses. The development of the PKI was conducted by a
Taskforce PKI, a commission which consisted of senior managers of
various ministries and government agencies and was coordinated by the
Ministry of the Interior. It seemed that the costs of the PKI solution were
too high in relation to the benefits of the system: a study revealed that the
frequency of contact between citizens and government were far too low to
counterbalance the expenses. The use of the PKI would also be complex
and difficult to use for citizens. Interviews revealed a lack of trust
between parties involved in the taskforce.
2002 Three senior managers of separate national social security agencies
agreed to jointly develop an eIDM system. Their organizations wanted to
offer their clients electronic services but did not have the means to
securely identify and authenticate those clients. In their view, the PKI
process was too complex, cumbersome and inert
2003 The three senior managers convinced other social security agencies to
draw up a white paper in which the parties jointly stressed the importance
to speed up the process. The white paper was signed by the CEOs of six
social security agencies, namely: the Centre for Labour and Income, the
Board of Health Insurances, the Institute for Employers Insurances, the
Information Management, the Social Security and the Tax Office.
Development
2003 The steering committee National Authentication Provision (NAP) was set
up, which aim was to coordinate the development of an eIDM system.
May
The intention of the NAP was to create a simple solution as around 80%
of the interaction between government and clients concerns relatively
insensitive data exchange which can be supported by a low security level
tool. A simple tool was also easier to implement than the complex PKI.
2003 The NAP gave the Bureau Chain Automation Labour (BKWI) and
Income the mandate to build the application. BKWI hired the consultancy
company Zenc to carry out a feasibility study and to define the technical
specifications.
2003 BKWI commissioned the company Alfa & Aris to develop the DIGID
74
application for the six manifesto parties.

2003 NAP needed the cooperation with the Board of Privacy Protection to
solve the issue that the social security number to identify user, could not
be used due to privacy legislation.
2004 Legislation was changed which enabled the use of the social security
number.
2004 BKWI started pilot projects to test the solution developed by Alfa & Aris.
Implementation / diffusion
2004 The DIGID was ready for nation wide adoption by government agencies
and BKWI organised several conferences to stimulate the adoption.
Summer
2004 The management of DIGID solution shifted from the NAP group to the
ministry of interior. They temporarily delegated the management of
DIGID to the Tax Office and ICTU.
2004 The Ministry of the Interior established a joint management organisation,
called Gemeenschappelijke Beheer Organisatie (GBO) which task would
2005
be the management and further development of DigiD.
2006 2006 the GBO started its activities and herewith the financing and
management of DigiD became structural
January
2009 DigiD has been adopted by around 300 municipalities, 4 provinces, 8
Water Management Boards, 4 Health Insurance Companies and some 20
other government agencies
2010 - ? Noteworthy however is the recent discussion which has started about the
limited security level the DigiD system offers and the question has raised
how to increase the security level, for instance by using PKI technology
6.2 Technical solution: DigiD
DigiD (digital identity) started as NAO. DigiD identifies and authenticates Dutch
citizens to enable the interaction between government and individuals. DigiD works on
the basis of a unique national identifier, the citizen service number (BSN -
BurgerServicenummer).Currently, DigiD has two security levels75: (1) username and
password (low security level) (2) username and password combined with a unique code
provided by text message (medium security level). In practice, citizens can apply for a
username and password by a digital form on the DigiD website. Five days after having
completed the electronic form, the user will receive a code by post with which he/she
can activate his/her username and password. When the username and password are
activated, the user can obtain the digital services of governments which require this low
security level. To use the medium security level citizens have to apply for the Short
Message Service (SMS) authentication through the DigiD website. This process is
similar to the application of the low level security. According to IDABC (2009), a third
security level was originally planned in the form of a national electronic identity card
75
See ePractice.eu and IDABC (2009)
(eNIK). However, the introduction of the eNIK card is delayed, as a judge ruled in 2007
that the procurement process would need to be redone.
Figure 6 shows how the identification process works when the citizen acquired his
username/password and/or SMS service. According to IDABC (2009):
1 A citizen approaches a Service Provider (SP) for an eGovernment service.
authentication is necessary to receive this service
2 The SP sends a message to the DigiD to receive a Request Identifier (RID)
3 The SP receives a RID
4 The SP sends this RID to the citizen
5 The citizen is (with the RID) redirected toDigiD
6 DigiD checks whether the username and password are available in the DigiD
database
7 In cases where a higher level of assurance is required, DigiD sends an additional
SMS with a one-time password to the citizens mobile phone. If all is correct, DigiD
sends a message via the user to confirm that the user is authenticated
8 Via a direct and secure channel between DigiD and the SP, the SP can request the
Citizen Service Number
9 This Citizen Service Number is delivered to the SP
10 If necessary this number can be used by the SP to request additional information
about the user from a basic register
.
Figure 5 Overview of DigiDs identification process (IDABC, 2009)

6.3 The role of trust in the DigiD innovation
H1 (PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS):
Trust can be based upon personal characteristics, such as integrity, benevolence and
capabilities.
Personal capabilities, both in personality and expertise, were important indicators for
the presence of interpersonal trust. Several respondents said strong expertise qualified
unknown persons for a trust relationship: I highly trusted him. He really knew what he
was talking about. He was a big wall of knowledge, a real expert. I immediately knew
that I wanted to hire him. Expertise is a specific ground, but can also help to build
trust over time: In the beginning the contact with him was very remote and reversed,
trust emerged at the moment we mutually recognised each others technical expertise
and professionalism. One of the respondents stated that they matched several personal
characteristics: We all pay a lot of attention to non-verbal communication, to mutual
feelings, to the emotional underflow. Similar personal characteristics can be the
underlying mechanism of the chemistry trusted people feel. Also in cases of distrust,
norms and values were addressed. One of the respondents did not trust another, because
this person was too busy with materialistic and status enhancing activities.
H2 (NORMS AND VALUES):

Trust can be based upon the sharing of norms and values between individuals.
In the initial phase of DigiD, the three initiating stakeholders shared several norms and
values together: pragmatism, decisiveness, technically-oriented, goal-getters and
openness (or transparency). They wanted to focus their time rather on solutions than
problems. One of the initiators describes the common elements as follows: We had in
common that we all were very practical, pragmatic, decisive and wanted to accomplish
concrete goals; we are the executive agencies, we want to execute. Another
respondent described similar values as a basis for trust: We both had the same frame of
reference, we were interested in ICT, were very practical and decisive. They opposed
their shared norms and values to the norms and values they perceived at the policy
makers working for the PKI-based system: Our rationality differs very much from the
rationality of policy makers. They wanted to make policy and legislation, a process that
is very cumbersome. This was a cultural issue, as norms and value add up to culture:
The culture of policy makers does not fit the culture of executive agencies.

have a bound.
As shown in the previous cases, experiencing similar problems give a special bond.
This is important in all phases of an innovation process. For example, the initial
stakeholders of DigiD shared the same experiences and struggles. Their services (in the
domain of social security) needed an identification infrastructure, but the one that was
planned (PKI) progressed in their view too slowly. Other respondents identified with
each other as they had experienced similar scandals in their government agency. Also in
latter phase of the DigiD project identification and empathy played a substantial role.
One of the stakeholders in the development / pilot phase mentioned that he felt mutual
dependency: The mutual dependency was that he was looking for an authentication
tool and that we were developing such a tool that could be interesting for central
government and that we, in turn, were looking for potential pilots., Sharing the same
interests in a project increases trust as well from a more rational perspective, One of the
stakeholders told in an interview: I really trusted him, because he had the same agenda
and interests as I had. He never played a trick on me.
H4 (ROUTINISATION):
When we asked the stakeholders of DigiD why they trust someone, the strength of the
tie was answered in most cases. For example, one of the stakeholders said:You can
call the trust within this network solidified trust, it is trust with a history, trust that over
time has become so strong and so settled that no member will break it.
Next, the degree of predictability in keeping appointments and promises by a person

seemed to be important indicator for trust. This is closely related to Hypothesis 7
(unmet expectations), which is a form of deroutinisation. One of the project members
said on this topic: I trust him. I know him for a long time, he has always kept his
appointments and lived up to his promises. On the other hand, persons that regularly
change their opinion in the project were often distrusted, like in the Austrian case. As
one of the respondents put it: He is a good guy, but he is jumpy and always has a
hidden agenda. He can be dangerous, can pursue his own interests and damage those
of other. or: He is a very enthusiastic and sympatric guy, but always agrees with the
last person he spoke to and therefore it is difficult to rely on him. or: His opinion
highly depended on the political opinion and therefore he was unpredictable. He did
not have his own opinion which made it difficult to trust him.
Predictability is also traded off against shared norms and values: He was very
transparent and honest about the interests of his organisation and about what he could
accomplish and what not. He really tried to move the national authentication system a
step further; he was constructive, transparent, open. However, his organisation had her
own interests. So I trust the person, but because of the interest within the organisation
he belonged to, he was not always predictable. Routinisation assumes that trust is not
just a given fact; it is built up over time. In the DigiD case, trust was reaffirmed during
project meetings, by stressing the common interests and vision. One of the project
managers states: we had to mutually reassess and reconfirm the level of trust at the
beginning of each meeting. I constantly reminded the group of our common interest: the
creation of one, shared infrastructure.
Many interesting cases of transferability were found in the DigiD case. There seems to
be a direct and an indirect form of transferability in this case. The direct form refers to
sharing a friend of acquaintance that introduces you. This was mentioned several times,
for example: I trusted him. He has and had a very strong tie with my colleague, so we
had a shared acquaintance. A more indirect form of transferability is reputation. This
refers the knowledge the personal network has of the trustworthiness (e.g. based on
personal capabilities, etc.). As one of the respondents stated: I met or saw him once or
twice and I think he is a professional in what he does. He has a good reputation. I know
some people he also knows very well. A respondent stated that the mechanism of
transferability (in the form of reputation) is an important instrument for selecting

people: If someone new enters the sector, for example if I want to hire someone to
carry out an important task, I have a network of people who I can call to check if this
person is all right; if he or she is trustworthy. It works like an informal ballot
commission. If someone I very much trust that trust a third person, than I will also
trust that third person.

of the other.
The absence of trust surely increased the transaction costs (and the duration) of
cooperation, because trust needed to be reassessed over and over again. For example, it
was stated earlier that trust had to be reassessed in project meetings. Also on person-to-
person basis (like in the Belgian case) it needed more time to align interests: Back then
I tried to meet with him once a month in order to tune interests. He is a man of tricks.
Project membere were taking specific measurements (e.g. hierarchical, financial or
legal) in case of distrust: If I cannot trust someone I have to take some measurements
to ensure everything goes well, and I will not take any risks. Trust makes that you can
take risks that you can take big steps and that you can be more effective. One of the
respondents stated very explicitly on the consequence of distrust in actual behaviour:
If I cannot trust someone I have to take some measurements to ensure everything goes
well, and I will not take any risks. Trust makes that you can take risks that you can take
big steps and that you can be more effective.
does not live up to the expectations of the other.
Meeting expectations is closely related to the concept of routinisation: does someone
structurally keep his word? A stakeholder in the DigiD case gave an example of unmet
expectations in a buyer-supplier relationship: I find reliability very important. If I
cannot trust somebody I wont work with him or her. We had a supplier once, who was
not honest about 5.000 euros. One may think that this is a small amount of money, but it
had severe consequences for this supplier. He has never been hired by me again.
Everybody knows that you cannot fool me without consequences. You have to be
honest.

Not many cases of solved conflicts were found in the DigiD case. One of the
respondents stated that he would try to solve situations of distrust on a personal basis:
I trust everyone of the chart, and if I do not trust someone, I will have some good
conversations with him or her. I deliberately invest in building trust.
H9 (HIERARCHY):
mechanisms of hierarchy.
Hierarchal mechanisms worked in two ways. In the absence of trust, you have to trust in
the decision power or formal procedures. However, hierarchy instead of trust makes
decision processes slower and can therefore impact the speed of the innovation process.
In the view of some respondents in DigiD case, this has been the case in the PKI
project: Hierarchical trust is seen as decision power: The lack of trust in the PKI
project was an important barrier for progress, it made the process cumbersome, the
lack of trust paralyzed the process. On the other hand, having decision power over
others or within the organisation increases trust. This has been the case in the
hierarchical relationship between the consultant and the contractor in initiation phase of
the DigiD case.

Not many legal mechanisms were mentioned by the respondents of the DigiD case.
Obviously, the relationship between contracted commercial parties is based on a
contract (apart from relational and expertise based trust).

The DigiD case shows that a Trusted Third Party can work like a broker: it can link
persons that distrust each other. This happened between policy makers and executives
in the DigiD case. One of the respondents saw his / her self as a broker: There is a lot
of distrust between the policy makers and the executive agencies. They have never
communicated well. I think I was a linking pin between the two worlds, because I
agreed with the executive agencies. However, this was not seen by all other
respondents.
H12 (CREATIVITY):
Trust is a necessary requisite for creativity in a team.
No specific cases of trust increasing or decreasing creativity have been found.

Motivational control was strongly related to hierarchy. A buyer-supplier relationship
between contractor and consultancy firm was seen as hierarchic. As a respondent puts
it: I surely believed that he would act in an honest way. There was a hierarchic
relationship, he was the contractor.

In a high trust environment it is easier to put all different interests openly on the table,
without necessarily resulting in large conflicts. In the initial and development phase of
the DigiD case this proofed to be important. As one of the project managers stated: I
really tried to lay all conflicts of interests on the table, to discuss it in all openness.
Hidden agendas would have fatal consequences, would drive the group apart. I
constantly reminded the group of our common interest: the creation of one, shared
infrastructure. Although the parties had their different (and sometimes conflicting)
interests, they were open about it and stressed the common goal rather than the
deviating interests. The lack of trust between the rivalling projects (PKI and DigiD) did
certainly not help to bridge their deviating views on eIDM. As one of the respondents
puts it: I said to him stop the PKI development it is not going to work and he just
couldnt cape with my critique.
H15 (RISKS):
With a rival project in the background (PKI), the DigiD project was not without any
risks. Financial and organisational (e.g. loss of jobs) risks seemed to play an important
role in the start of the project. Were the different stakeholders able and willing to invest
in a new system? Respondents stated that the high trust at start of the project was
critical in bearing these risks: The trust between parties was that large that we dared
to take risks and to invest money. The trust was large because all members had a good
reputation as regards keeping appointments, we were dependent on each other and we
all knew that not being reliable would have severe personal consequences. In case of
high risks, trust between the persons was a necessary prerequisite: In risky situation
you have to trust each other for a 100%, I worked with the people I fully trusted.
H OTHER (CLOSURE):
Apart from taking hierarchical, financial and legal measures, group closure was
mentioned as an important instrument in case of distrust. In the DigiD case this showed
that the initiators were reluctant to let people enter the group that did not want to make
the same progress: He wanted to join the group, but I did not want him to join the
group, neither did the others. This had to do with his personality and the low level of
trust. Besides we did not want the policy machinery to slow down the project. Another
respondent explicitly mentioned closure mechanisms as well: If someone is not
trustworthy he or she will not be actively involved in the network

7 Cross-case analysis
Table 6 shows how every hypothesis is manifested in each case. Such a table allows to
analyse the hypotheses on a higher aggregation level and to test if an observation in one
of the case studies is substantiated by the other case studies.
Table 6 Overview of hypotheses and cases
Variable Belgium (Belpic) Austria (Brgerkarte) Finland (VETUMA) The Netherlands

(DigiD)
Level of trust Low Low High High
Democratic system Consensual Westminster Consensual Consensual
Process Top-down Top-down Bottom-up Bottom-up
On what factors is trust grounded?
H1 (PERSONAL Independency and expertise Expertise was an important Technical and legal Personality and expertise
CHARACTERISTICS) were important grounds for ground for trust and was expertise proofed to be were important indicators for
trust. especially important in an important source for trust. Expertise can help to
All cases confirm lower hierarchies of the trust. Respondents said it build trust over time.
organization. was more important than
H2 (NORMS AND Norms and values was Highly important and Norms and values were High trust team that initiated
VALUES) present in trust present in the high trust in less important for trust. the DigiD project shared
relationships, but too a the team designing and Basis norms and values specific norms and values,
3 out of 4 cases lesser degree in distrust developing the eIDM were shared on a macro and persons that explicitly did
confirm relationships solution level: openness and not share these norms and
professionalism. values were distrusted.
H3 No specific examples of No specific examples of Identification and Identification and empathy

(IDENTIFICATION identification and empathy identification and empathy, empathy were very were very important in the
AND EMPATHY) apart from personal important in the start of start of the project. The
capabilities. the project. The initiators initiators struggled with the
2 out of 4 cases struggled with the same same problems.
confirm problems.
H4 Routinisation and strong The basis for intense and The four initiating The strength of the tie and
(ROUTINISATION) ties were an important good collaboration in the municipalities had a predictability of persons was
mechanism to build trust. development team was routinised and strong mentioned as most important
All cases confirm found in strong ties at the relationship. They knew for trust relationship, more
university. what to expect. than values or personals
capabilities.
H5 There were no particular Transferability occurred Trusting a common Many cases of transferability
(TRANSFERABILITY cases of transferability occasionally between the person (in this case the
OF TRUST) found. members of high trust Project Manager) formed
teams. basis for trust.
3 out of 4 cases
confirm
What factors change trust over time?
H6 (CONTROL IN Serious cases of control in Mild cases of control in Only few cases of Respondents were very much
ABSENCE OF absence of trust. Integrity absence of trust. Control control in absence of aware of how to control a
TRUST) of action was assessed and manifested in being more trust. Control manifested relationship when distrust was
opportunistic behaviour is closed and institutionalizing in being more closed to high. Closure and hierarchical
All cases confirm opposed with hierarchical trust in working groups. external parties (e.g. the measures are taken.
measures (i.e. escalation). KATSO consortium)
H7 (UNMET No particular cases of Unmet expectations One case of unmet Unmet expectations
EXPECTATIONS) unmet expectations. happened: it is the opposite expectations happened. happened: it is the opposite of
of routinisation, as it Respondents expressed routinisation, as it decreases
3 out of 4 cases decreases the predictability. the need to live up the the predictability.
confirm promises made in the
early stage of VETUMA.
H8 (JOINT Solving conflicts clearly Solving conflicts clearly Not many conflicts. The No cases of solved conflicts
SOLUTION OF helped to build trust in the helped to build trust. It is only large conflict was were found, but respondents
CONFLICT) case no hierarchical closely linked to identity not solved, so no data. knew solving conflicts would
measures were needed to and empathy. help to (re)build trust.
2 out of 4 cases solve it.
confirm
How does trust influence the joint innovation process?
H9 (HIERARCHY) Hierarchical measures Hierarchy was clearly seen Hierarchy played a mild In absence of trust, decision
(formal minutes, decision as a compensation for trust. role. Involving all power and formal procedures
All cases confirm power and escalations) Formal structures (e.g. hierarchical layers are important. Hierarchy
were taken in case of working groups) were enables trust: it create an makes the innovation process
conflict and high level of needed to bring distrusting open environment, where slower.
distrust. parties together. actions can be watched.
H10 (LEGAL Contracts and joint Respondents see contracts, No formal Not many legal mechanisms
MECHANISMS) statements were mentioned agreements and official documentation was seen were mentioned by the
as compensation and driver minutes as signs of distrust. as needed and contracts respondents of the DigiD
2 out of four cases of trust. It simply decreases became important when case.
confirm risk and increases commercial parties
predictability. entered the project. After
the project legal
mechanisms were seen
as necessary for external
parties that did not trust
the project (e.g. auditors)
H11 (TRUSTED An external consultant was No specific instances of On national scale, the Trusted Third Party worked
THIRD PARTY) used as a trusted third trusted third parties were state auditor commission as a broker in the DigiD case:
party, but was not found. was trusted third party bridging interests and so
No cases confirm successful as it was not (and mediator) between compensating the absence of
trusted enough. KATSO and VETUMA trust.
system.
H12 (CREATIVITY) Creativity can be blocked Trust made the development No specific examples of No specific examples of
in cases of low trust (e.g. team rather efficient and influence of trust on influence of trust on creativity
1 out of 4 cases do not trust the ideas of the open. Creativity was not creativity were found. were found.
confirm other). explicitly mentioned.
H13 Motivational control was Commercial goals were Motivational controls Motivational control was seen
(MOTIVATIONAL very much apparent in the clear and used as a control (such as incentives) did in hierarchically asymmetric
CONTROL) Belgian case. Dependency mechanism. Market not compensate, but (i.e. dependent) relationships.
was used to control e.g. mechanisms made the increased trust.
All cases confirm commercial parties. interests predictable.
Independency makes
people more trustworthy.
H14 (BRIDGING In the Belpic case, trust was High level of trust in the High level of trust High level of trust is easier to
DEVIATING needed to express opposing development team created allowed expressing put all different interest
INTERESTS) views. an open environment and opposing interests, openly on the table, without
allowed criticism. Trust opinions and ideas in an provoking conflicts. This was
All cases confirm brought also technical and open environment, important in the initial and
legal perspectives on eIDM without interpersonal development phase.
together. relationships.
H15 (RISKS) Trust was needed to deal Without trust, parties would Trust was needed to bear In case of high risks
with organizational not have invested in the the financial and (organizational, technical and
All cases confirm complexity in the eIDM project. organizational risks, financial) in the DigiD
consortium that developed especially in the project, trust between persons
the eIDM infrastructure. initiation phase. was crucial.
H OTHER In the absence of trust, Distrust would block Closure was explicitly
(CLOSURE) people will try to keep collaboration. There mentioned as an important
distrusted persons out of were several signs of instrument in case of distrust.
decisions in the innovation group closure in the
process. Finnish case.
H OTHER Trust had a positive

(EFFICIENCY) influence on the speed of
the innovation process,
because it speeded up
decision process and
knowledge exchange.
8 Conclusions
In this chapter conclusions and recommendations for each hypothesis studied in the
case studies are discussed. The mechanism, role in the innovation process and
recommendation for policy-makers and other government practitioners are outlined.
8.1 Factors on which trust is grounded
8.1.1 Personal characteristics

The case studies show in specific that exposure of knowledge can contribute to the trust
that somebody will do his job accurately. In this uncertain stages where people has to be
selected as project members, it appears that project managers tend to involve persons of
whom they know professionally and of whom they can trust their expertise and track
record.
Role of innovation: In highly specialised society, knowledge is the key for innovation,
therefore it is important to have the right expertise in the innovation team.
Recommendation: It is important to have a large amount of weak ties (persons only

indirectly involved in the innovation process) to have access to large amount of
potential expertise for the innovation process. By valuing expertise instead of, for
instance, the knowing of somebody, the innovation process (e.g. the decision making)
becomes more rational.
8.1.2 Shared norms and values

It appears in the cases that if individuals share specific norms and values, they are more
able to estimate the behaviour of others. It seems even the case, that in groups with very
strong norms and values the expectation that someone will act compliant is greater and
therefore their level of trust is higher.
Role in innovation: Strong norms and values and high level of trust can impact
innovation in two ways. First, it enables and speeds up the innovation process as no
control mechanisms are needed. Second, strong trust based on norms and values can
cause group closure (see the conclusion & recommendation on closure in 8.3.9).
Recommendation: This hypothesis shows that for policy makers it is important to

mutually and deliberately build trust at all stages of the innovation process by involving
people with the same norms, values and interests. On the other hand it is important to
ensure enough diversity of ideas within the group. Therefore, one should not confuse
diversity of ideas with a variety in norms and values.
8.1.3 Identification and empathy

It appears in two confirmed cases that in case of high level of uncertainty, for instance
at the initiation of the project were the aims, strategies and technology are still unclear;
shared experiences and problems strengthen the relationship between the interpersonal
relationships. In addition, it seems that in highly competitive environments, where there
are several similar innovations build by separate groups, identification and empathy is
more important as groups feel that they have a shared enemy.
Role in innovation process: Identification and empathy yield mechanisms of group

bonding, which may result in group closure processes and thus eliminates openness for
deviant ideas. It can polarizes groups within or between projects and therefore frustrate
the innovation process.
Recommendation: This hypothesis demonstrates that identification and empathy can be

irrational grounds for trust, which highly influences the innovation process. This can
increases competition between coalitions and not necessarily result in the most optimal
innovation.
8.1.4 Routinisation
Routinisation increases the information individuals have of the others; herewith it
increased the predictability of the other and decreases the uncertainty. In many cases we
have seen that people tend to rely on persons they already professionally know and their
track record, so that they can estimate the behaviour of the other.
Role in innovation process: On the one hand strong information of the expertise and
track record of others enable project managers to select the strongest team, but on the
other hand as the selection may be based on prejudices and can be implicit and
irrational. This can result in overlap and lack of expertise and skills within the
innovation process.
Recommendation: This hypothesis shows that project managers need to choose

deliberately the project members that encompass the right expertises and skills and on
the other hand their reputation and proven track record. Professional HRM policy at the
start of ICT projects can counter this risk.
8.1.5 Transferability of trust

In cases of high uncertainty and a weak tie between two persons, people may ask a third
person with whom they have a strong tie and have a strong tie with the other to give his
opinion on the reliability of the third person. The intermediate person through which
trust flows can be seen as a opinion broker in the sense that the deciding person grounds
his opinion on the assessment of the opinion broker. The cases also demonstrate that the
opinion broker has a very powerful position as he is able to control the information
flows. He can decide to give access to information or not, or can bring persons into
contact or not.
Role in innovation: In groups with many brokers, the information flow is not optimal,
as the opinion brokers control the access to contacts and information based upon their
interest. In optimal situation people are able to access unbiased information and trust
based on their assessment.
Recommendation: In innovation, dissemination of unbiased information is important,

e.g. to choose what technology to use. In a network where people are well connected
(so with less opinion brokers) information flows are less biased. In networks in which
people are very well connected, there is a continuous information flow between many
actors, but within a network with many brokers, information flows are controlled by a
few. This can be very efficient during the implementation or diffusion phase of the
innovation process, but can hamper the more divergent processes needed for the initial
phases. So, government practitioners should pay attention to connectedness of the actors
involved and prevent that few opinion brokers control information in the process.
Therefore, it is necessary balance efficiency with an open environment, in which weak
ties feel welcome.
8.2 Factors that change the level of trust over time
8.2.1 Control mechanisms in absence of trust

Various control mechanisms have been used to counterbalance distrust: examples are
written documents such as minutes of meetings, hierarchy (in the sense that people
higher in the hierarchy rely that their employees will follow their command). In
addition we found in all cases that in absence of trust, people tend to be very careful in
the provision of information, knowledge and skills.
Role in innovation: Control may counterbalance trust in herewith support the

innovation, however, crucial for innovation is knowledge and information sharing. In
case of distrust, control mechanisms can stimulate knowledge and information sharing,
but not as strong as trust does. For instance, although there is copyright if there is not
trust in the design team, not all information will be shared (secrecy).
Recommendation: Trust is very important in the innovation process, in specific the

initiation and development phase. Control mechanisms can not fully replace this.
Therefore, it is important to deliberately and mutually build trust at these stages of the
process. The conclusions and recommendations for the grounds of trust gives directions
for trust building.
8.2.2 Unmet expectations

In all cases reciprocity was an important fundament of trust. However, cases have also
shown that in weak and strong ties this reciprocity can be damaged not living up to the
expectations of the other. The cases show that there are several levels of damaging trust
by not meeting expectations. Most frequently the decrease of trust was caused by actors
not meeting the expectations of the other, for instance not achieving certain goals, not
committing that much funds or time, not communicating well, lack of management,
deviating from agreements made. The level of impact of the unmet expectation,
combined with the type and strength of the relationship, seem to determine the need for
control mechanisms to compensate.
Role in innovation: The trust that decreases by unmet expectation seems to be

compensated by control mechanisms. This can help to rebuild trust on the long term,
but it slows down the innovation process on the short term.
Recommendation: This hypothesis stresses the importance of setting realistic and

feasible goals and openness on the strengths and weaknesses of actors. Trust can lower
the threshold for communicating vulnerable information. If stakeholders have open,
honest and instant communication about the progress being made, including the risks
and failures of the innovation process, the chance that trust is damaged in a later stage
decreases.
8.2.3 Joint solution of conflict

The cases show that a joint solution of a conflict is a prime example of mutual
emotional involvement. Just like other emotional incidents, conflicts increase the
exchange of emotions between persons. It is a form of intimacy, which strengthens ties.
So, it seems the joint solution of a conflict strengthens the identification and empathy
between two persons, which is a ground for trust.
Role of innovation: It might be the case that conflicts without a solution seem to
polarize persons within the innovation process, whereas jointly solved conflicts build
trust and support cooperation. The conflict disrupts the innovation process, but the end
result might be that the trust after the conflict trusts, which may support and speed up
the innovation process in later phases.
Recommendation: This hypothesis suggests that project managers should allow

conflicts to a certain degree in teams with high trust relationships and that the mediation
and management of conflicts needs attention. Project managers should not be conflict-
averse, especially in heterogeneous groups, which often encompass many perspectives
and views.
8.3 The influence of trust on joint innovation process
8.3.1 Hierarchical mechanisms of control

The trust of the superior in his subordinate is in most cases higher than vice versa. This,
as the superior has a more powerful position compared to subordinate and can put
consequences to the behaviour of the subordinate. The subordinate can not counter
behaviour of the superior, the superior can. Second, actors may trust individuals higher
in the hierarchy as they have decision power, network, and access to resources and
therefore trust their promises. Third, the subordinate-superior relationship of person you
have conflict with can be used to escalate and force a specific outcome.
Role in innovation: As the subordinate is dependent on the superior, the superior may
have more trust that the subordinate will act in his interest than vice versa. The effect in
innovation processes may be that the subordinate will serve the interests of the
subordinate rather than fully exploiting his or her knowledge or skills to support the
innovation process. In addition, the involvement of individuals higher in the hierarchy
may be particularly important in the initial phase of the innovation process, where
decisions are made and resources are allocated.
Recommendation: This mechanism shows the subsidiarity of trust in the innovation

process. Project managers should be aware that persons from the right hierarchical level
are around the table, or elsewhere in the project organisation.
8.3.2 Legal mechanisms of control

Legal mechanisms (such as formal minutes, contracts with markets parties, etc.)
increase the predictability of the contracted party and decrease the risk as puts
consequences to opportunistic behaviour as a counterbalance. Like hierarchy it is way
to compensate trust.
Role in innovation: Legal mechanisms are more rational and explicit than trust as
governance mechanisms. Although legal mechanisms will take more time in the
innovation process than trust, it creates an open environment with an explicit clear cut
overview of the rules of the game. However, it may decrease the benevolence and
spontaneous collaboration, which can particularly be needed in the design and
development phase.
Recommendation: Especially in the design and development phase of an eIDM

innovation, a high trust network of persons in which spontaneous collective action can
happen is needed. In later phases, such as the implementation and diffusion, legal
instruments can enable open dissemination of the innovation.
8.3.3 Trusted Third Party

As evidence is lacking on this hypothesis, we can not make any conclusions or
recommendations.
8.3.4 Creativity
It seems that in high trust networks both limited and high creativity are present.
Creativity is grounded in the values of the groups, such as openness of deviant ideas. In
high trust networks, people can be closed or open to deviant ideas. Not trust, but the
value and norms within the group ultimately affect the creativity of the group. However,
a certain basis of trust is needed for information exchange. The values however
determine if deviant ideas are shared.
Role of innovation: The strength of weak ties (persons that are only indirectly involved
in the innovation process) for innovation depends on whether the group of trusted
people are open to deviating ideas from these weak ties.
Recommendation: Not a certain level of trust in the development of in phase is needed

to be ensured, but also shared values, such as openness to deviating ideas.
8.3.5 Motivational control (incentives)

It appears that individuals who know the interests of other individuals can use
incentives to stimulate certain behaviour. Incentives increase the predictability and thus
trust that an actor will demonstrate certain behaviour.
Role of innovation: Incentives can be used to stimulate innovative behaviour, e.g.

innovation awards, certain allocation of resources.
Recommendation: Incentives appear to be an important stimulus for innovative

behaviour and could be used for this purpose. Especially in situations of distrust,
praising constructive behaviour with awards good be favourable to rebuild the level of
trust.
8.3.6 Bridging deviating interests

In high trust environment information on conflicting can be more often openly
discussed, whereas in low trust environments conflicting interests are hidden agendas
and more tricks are played, which enhances the distrustful relationship.
Role of innovation: Open discussion on conflicting interests stimulates creativity and

finding of a shared solution. Distrustful networks can cause an innovation lock: no
progress will be made as conflicting interests can not be overcome.
Recommendation: The development and design of and eIDM innovation can only take
place with a certain basis of trust. If this is lacking, policy makers could question the
viability of the project. In case of only a severe innovation lock-in, actors could be
replaced by others to unlock the situation
8.3.7 Risks
Trust is clearly needed to jointly take risks. In order to be able to take a risk, actors have
to be certain that there interests will be respected by the other partners. In case there is
not this basis of trust, interdependencies can compensate this trust, e.g. creating the
feeling that we are all in the same boat. If the interests are in line, people are more
wiling to take risks, as they are more certain that the other will act in their interest.
Role of innovation: At the start and the development of the innovation, uncertainties are
high and there are many risks for the involved persons. This uncertain situation requires
a high level of trust to enable the development of the innovation process.
Recommendation: In the first stages, it is important to deliberately build a certain basis

of trust on the basis of shared interests.
8.3.8 Efficiency
The observation that a high level of trust in the innovation process can stimulate
efficiency was only found in one of the four cases. However, this is an interesting
observation. A low level of interpersonal trust between actors involved can be one of
the barriers for the development and implementation of an eIDM system. In low trust
environments actors need to reconfirm agreements, to formalise decisions, only limited
information is shared and a high level of involvement is needed (e.g. all partners have to
attend all meetings as they do not trust that the other will take into account their
interests). In cases of low interpersonal trust the cooperation appears not only to be
slower but also less effcient than in in cases of high levels of trust.
8.3.9 Closure
In several cases we found that group closure caused a lock-in effect: opposing views
were not taken into account and distrusted people were excluded from the network.
Role in innovation: Lock-in effect can help to speed up the innovation process, but there
is a huge risk: it limited the access to new ideas in most cases. Lock-in and closure can
hamper rational and well-balanced decision making in the innovation process.
Recommendation: Policy makers and practitioners can counterbalance closure effects

with control mechanisms, discussed earlier in this conclusion section.
9 Policy implications
9.1 General implications
This study shows that trust has two sides in the innovation process of eIDM systems.
One the one hand, a high level of trust between the persons involved in such a project
enhances the speed and reach of sharing of information, knowledge and skills. eIDM
projects are knowledge intensive due to the technical, organisational and legal complex
nature. Therefore, a certain level of trust is necessary to deal with this complexity is
absolutely necessarey. On the other hand, most cases show that high levels of trust
combined with very strong norms and values can cause group closure and lock-in
effects. This might have severe consequences for the creative side of the innovation
process, as influence from weak ties (persons that are indirectly involved in the
innovation process) or outside the network is seen as undesirable.
As a soft factor of innovation, trust is often neglected compared to financial, technical,

legal, and organizational factors. This seems logical at first instance, as trust is a
complex and intangible concept. However, this study shows that trust should be
deliberately build and perverse effects such as group closure deliberately need to be
compensated by control mechanisms, such as strict procedures and organisational
hierarchy, to ensure the inclusion of all important stakeholders and knowledge. All
cases made clear that the level and role of trust in the innovation process highly differs
over time. At the early stages of innovation, high levels of interpersonal trust are
needed, whereas in later stages (implementation and diffusion) control mechanisms,
such as hierarchy, market incentives, regulation and law, is needed. Although the case
studies provide only explorative evidence, it seems that the right balance of control and
trust in the innovation process can help to find an optimal combination of process speed
and effectiveness (e.g. end-user take-up).
The case studies show that trust is a crucial factor which influences the innovation
process, outcome and impact. However, the cases also show that the notion is versatile
and ambiguous. Whereas other factors, such as funding and legislation are explicit and
tangible, trust is implicit and difficult to grasp. This makes that policy recommendations
are more difficult to make for researchers. However, what we have seen in the cases is
that the large majority of policy makers did not deliberately pay attention to the social
setting and its impact. Before starting a joined-up ICT innovation process, project
managers could more deliberately assess the social characteristics of the network
involved (e.g. the level of interpersonal trust among partners) and based on this estimate
the feasibility of the cooperation.
9.2 Implications for policy instruments
This study points to the fact that different projects and project stages need rational
assessment of the trust configuration. Ouchi (1980) calls these trust configurations
network governance structures. According to him, there are three governance
mechanisms possible during an innovation process: based on trust, based on market
agreements (such as contracts and buyer-supplier relationships) and based on
hierarchical control (see figure 6). A critical trust assessment based on Ouchis network
governance triangle (Trust-Market-Hierarchy) can help to balance the positive and

negative effects of trust on the innovation process.
Market
Hierarcy Trust
Figure 6 Triangle of network governance structures (Ouchi, 1980)
Future research (firmly grounded in the practice of government projects) should give
more normative guidance on these interpersonal trust configurations. A specific trust
configuration assessment for innovation could be used at three specific moments: (1)
start of a project (2) during a project and (3) after a project.
9.2.1 Start of a project

At the start of a project to map the current social capital of the stakeholders involved. It
can complement current investment or risk analysis of complex ICT projects in the
Public Sector. Such an ex-ante analysis should focus on the existence of grounds of
trust at the start of a project:
1 Personal characteristics (e.g., is there enough expertise in place?)
2 Norms and values (e.g., is there a balance between shared vision and heterogeneity
in ideas / opinions?)
3 Identification and empathy (e.g., did the stakeholders experiences the same
problems / issues?)
4 Routinisation (e.g., did the stakeholders work together in the past?)
5 Transferability of trust (e.g. how were team members from the different
organizations selected?)
9.2.2 During a project

During a complex innovation project a trust configuration analysis can monitor whether
there is enough trust, market or hierarchy mechanisms in place. In this sense it can
complement current project and program management methodologies. Monitoring
could focus on different roles of interpersonal trust during the different phases of a
project and the specific barriers of innovation that relate to social capital (e.g. conflicts,
mediation, opportunistic behaviour, etc.).
9.2.3 After a project

After the project such an assessment can be used to evaluate the most important drivers
and barriers of innovation related to social capital. It can help to draw up lessons learnt
for future projects.
9.3 Future research
Future research should aim to design such a trust configuration assessment by

translating the variables of this research into a practical survey. Evidence from other
inter-organisational systems, such as eProcurement, tax or eHealth, can help to
generalize the conclusions of this report to other joint innovations.
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Brassersplein 2

P.O. Box 5050

2 Theory: trust in joint innovations .............................................................................. 10

3 Belgium: Belpic ............................................................................................................ 19

5 Finland: VETUMA ...................................................................................................... 34

6 Netherlands: DIGID .................................................................................................... 43

9 Policy implications ....................................................................................................... 60

Literature overview ...................................................................................................................... 63

The present research is part of a broader research programme on digital identity

1.2 Research question

The main research question of this study is:

strategies, techniques, requisites, rather than giving a quantitative assessment of the

The cases were selected based upon four selection criteria:

Maturity of the eIDM system

Table 1: Phases of eIDM systems for each Member State 2009

Initiation Development Implementation Diffusion /

Cyprus Germany France Austria

Type of application domain

Malta Estonia Belgium Austria Ireland Netherlands Finland

Type of democratic model

The number of political parties that effectively participate in a countrys political

Country Mean Lowest Highest Number of elections

Low trust High trust

Figure 1 Confrontation of type of democratic model and level of trust

In conclusion, the following cases were selected:

2 Theory: trust in joint innovations

2.2 Definition of trust

2.3 Concepts of trust

2.4 Grounds for trust

Norms and values

Opinions of trusted persons transferability of trust

2.5 Stages of trust

2.6 Evaluation of trust in joint innovations

may be other forms of competition between public sector agencies. In cases of

Nooteboom (2002) argues that trust may be needed to cooperatively innovate in a

2.7.1 Overall trust model

Table 5 Overview of hypotheses

Grounds Stages Evaluation

2.7.2 On what factors is trust grounded?

H2 (NORMS AND VALUES):

H3 (IDENTIFICATION AND EMPATHY):

2.7.3 What factors change the level of trust over time?

H6 (CONTROL IN ABSENCE OF TRUST):

H8 (JOINT SOLUTION OF CONFLICT):

2.7.4 How does trust influence the joint innovation process?

H10 (LEGAL MECHANISMS):

H11 (TRUSTED THIRD PARTY):

H13 (MOTIVATIONAL CONTROL):

H14 (BRIDGING DEVIATING INTERESTS):

This introduction paragraph gives a chronological overview of the eIDM innovation

made in order to be able to use the National Register as an authentic

3.2 Technical solution: Belpic

Figure 2 A typical Belgium eIDM card (Source: ZETES)

Alternatives for the Belpic card are (IDABC, 2009):

3.3 The role of trust in the Belpic innovation

3.3.1 On what factors is trust grounded?

H1 (PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS): Trust can be based upon personal

H4 (ROUTINISATION): The higher the routinisation (more knowledge and experience)

H5 (TRANSFERABILITY OF TRUST): Trust is transferable between individuals

3.3.2 What factors change trust over time?

H6 (CONTROL IN ABSENCE OF TRUST): When trust is absent, individuals are forced

H7 (UNMET EXPECTATIONS): A decline of trust between individuals can emerge in

3.3.3 How does trust influence the joint innovation process?