Marriott School Professor Recognized for Study of the Decade

Wujin Chu and Jeff Dyer received awards for
having the most influential study of the decade.PROVO, Utah – Sep 10, 2010 – The auto industry has been based on processes since its beginning with the invention of the assembly line. It's therefore not surprising a Marriott School professor's work, which found that trust in the industry is also based on predictable processes, has been named the most influential study of the decade.

The Journal of International Business Studies has recognized Jeff Dyer, professor of strategy, for his article, "The Determinants of Trust in Supplier-Automaker Relationships in the U.S., Japan and Korea." The Decade Award was presented this summer at the 2010 Academy of International Business Annual Meeting in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where the authors and other scholars presented commentaries on the findings.

"The paper is very well-crafted; it deals with the complicated issue of how to build trust in a relationship," says Paul Beamish, chair of the award selection committee. "It is a great piece that tackles an important and challenging issue in international business research."

Dyer co-authored the study with Wujin Chu, of Seoul National University. A committee selected the winner of the annual award from among the most frequently cited articles published in the Journal of International Business Studies throughout the last 10 years.

At the awards ceremony the authors spoke about the impact of the paper's key findings. The duo discussed what has happened in the automotive industry since the article was published and whether their findings continue to be beneficial and valid. Three commentators also presented at the event about the article's influence.

Dyer and Chu's study finds significantly different levels of automaker trustworthiness in each country. Japanese automakers are the most trustworthy and U.S. automakers are the least trustworthy. The writers explain that the reason is primarily because Japanese automakers have built trust based on stable and predictable processes for interacting with suppliers. They also found that trust between individuals in an organization is not necessary for the organization to have a reputation of trustworthiness — trust is based more on predictable processes than it is on people.

The study also notes that while companies incur real costs in building a reputation of trust, the benefits far outweigh the costs. This idea became the foundation for a later study published by Dyer and Chu in a 2003 issue of Organization Science, which concluded that such reputations significantly lower transaction costs for businesses.

"I did not expect this award," Dyer says, "but of course it's an honor to know your research is viewed as a valuable contribution to your field."

The original study will be republished in the January 2011 issue of the Journal of International Business Studies along with a retrospect of the winning article and comments by those who presented at the event.

The Marriott School is located at Brigham Young University, the largest privately owned, church-sponsored university in the United States. The school has nationally recognized programs in accounting, business management, public management, information systems, and entrepreneurship. The school's mission is to prepare men and women of faith, character and professional ability for positions of leadership throughout the world. Approximately 3,000 students are enrolled in the Marriott School's graduate and undergraduate programs.