This study endeavoured to uncover the trust experiences of individuals involved in businessalliances between traditional companies (TCs) and historically disadvantaged institutions(HDIs) with a view to constructing a model that would facilitate a better understanding oforganisational trust within these institutions. The theoretical study proposed a theoreticalmodel of trust in the alliances between TCs and HDIs within an economic empowermentdomain. The empirical study employed Q methodology to investigate the trust experiences ofthe participants. The 25 individuals who participated in the study were selected by means ofboth non-probability purposive and snowball sampling The participants were presented withthe Q sample containing 50 items which they had to sort in accordance with the instructiongiven. The post-Q sorting interview was conducted to give the participants a chance toexpound on their reasoning for the sorting of the Q sample.Data were analysed using Pearson product-moment correlation and factor analysis. Sixfactors revealed participants’ experiences of trust in the alliances: Factor A (Sincerity trustalliances), Factor B (Values trust alliances), Factor C (Duped trust alliances), Factor D(Vigilant trust alliances), Factor E (Deceitful trust alliances) and Factor F (Inclination to trustalliances).The trust experiences of the six groups were used to theorise about the association betweenthe participants’ trust experiences and their performance on the Positive and Negative AffectSchedule (PANAS). In the main, the study found that groups that had pleasant trustexperiences with their partner organisations exhibited have high positive affect (PA) and lownegative affect (NA). Although exploratory in nature, the study contributed an empirically derived theoreticalframework of cognitive and affective trust within business alliances that may be furtherinvestigated in future research endeavours. In this was it identified and proposed a modusoperandi for closing the trust gap.
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