1 The project TiBiD (Telekooperation in Beziehungsnetzwerken für informationsbezogene Dienstleistungen) is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research; FKZ 01HG9991/2. See: http://www.telekooperation.de/tibid/. 1506 2001  Seventh Americas Conference on Information Systems BUILDING TRUST AND REPUTATION IN COMMUNITIES AND VIRTUAL ENTERPRISES Renate Eisentraut Technische Universität München eisentraut@ws.tum.de Michael Koch Technische Universität München kochm@in.tum.de Kathrin Mslein Technische Universität München moeslein@ws.tum.de Abstract Virtual enterprises mostly renounce formal contractual guarantees as coordination mechanism in order to ensure overall flexibility. As a consequence, trust becomes a decisive coordination mechanism for this type of organizations. In the project TiBiD we are exploring communities as a basis for building trust and reputation in the initiation phase of virtual enterprises. This paper briefly presents our current results of how to support trust building and trust transfer through online communities. Introduction In the project TiBiD 1 we are looking at how virtual enterprises form and how this formation (initiation) can be supported. In this context the building of trust and the transfer of reputation are of major importance. Therefore, we aim at supporting both the direct exchange between potential partners and the search for people that are able and willing to communicate their direct experience with others in order to facilitate trust building between potential partners. In this paper we will argue for the usefulness of communities for supporting the initiation of virtual enterprises. First, we will briefly touch the topic of what communities are and what they can be used for. Then we will present some basics about virtual enterprises before looking at the initiation phase and how it can be supported. At this point we touch the topic of trust and focus on support for trust building and trust transfer. Finally, we present the pilot area where we are currently setting up a support system. Community Support When looking behind the hype around the term “community” one can see communities as what they are: places that give people a context to communicate and to find like-minded people. In general a community is a group of people who share some interest or another common context, e.g. students in a university department or people interested in collaborative filtering. Thus, a community can be seen as a describing identity for a set of people. Mynatt et al. (1997) concretize further: "[A community] is a social grouping which exhibits in varying degrees: shared spatial relations, social conventions, a sense of membership and boundaries, and an ongoing rhythm of social interaction ". Basic Support Concepts Community support applications usually provide one or more of the following functionalities: • A medium for direct communication and for exchange of comments within the context of the community.