ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a conceptual model of trust in distributed military operations that is based on a current, extensive literature review and qualitative research. It describes the implications of model for empirical investigation and highlights the ways in which experiments conducted using model may generalize across forms of distributed military operation. On the surface, it may seem obvious why trust would be important in distributed military operations. Trust is believed to facilitate distributed collective performance by promoting interpersonal influence and such cooperative activities as information sharing and operational support. Recall that distributed operations introduce the possibility of both human and technological trustees. Distributed decision making removes external controls, such as a unified reporting structure that requires people to work interdependently to achieve personal success. Distributed C2 teams conducting joint, interagency, intergovernmental, and multinational (JIIM) (JIIM) operations are very large-scale, and they are characterized by blended structure as well as blended communications.
