Knowledge transactions can occur between two people, between a person and a group, a person and a repository, a group and a repository, or an institution and a repository. This maxim is simple, basic, and fundamental. No trust - no transaction. Trust represents a complex, somewhat indeterminate aspect of the relationship between two parties. Participants in a knowledge transaction need to be certain of every aspect of the transaction in order to trust it.
Different participants have different levels of tolerance for uncertainty.
A participant's comfort zone regarding certainty is going to govern the nature of the participant's involvement and commitment to the transaction. If your culture is one of distrust, knowledge transactions may be seriously jeopardized. Maxim 2 Assumption of Value In any knowledge transaction, there is an assumption of value on the part of the participants. In a transaction that involves a knowledge seller and a knowledge buyer, both parties assume they will receive value. Consider a case where one of the participants of a knowledge transaction is a person and the other is a repository.