We examine the influence of trust on the formation of social network ties for the idea generation and idea realisation stages of innovation. Drawing on data from 153 employees working in project teams at two firms, we find two dimensions of trustworthiness, Ability and Benevolence, predict tie formation for both idea generation and idea realisation, whereas Integrity predicts tie formation for idea generation only. Moderation analyses further reveal that perceptions of another's ability only predicts tie formation positively when that person is also perceived to be benevolent or have integrity. Across both firms and stages of innovation, a lack of benevolence makes ability largely irrelevant as a criterion for choosing a partner for innovation activities, whereas high benevolence increases the extent to which ability influences partner choice. Additionally, a lack of integrity makes ability either irrelevant or a negative criterion for partner section. Overall the results suggest that people need to perceive others as benevolent (i.e. collegial behaviour and concern for others) and not lacking in integrity in order to seek out their skills and knowledge for innovation in project teams.

In 2002, the UK government launched the Advanced Institute of Management Research, a major initiative intended to raise the quality of research in business schools. Rather than offering research grants in open competition, AIM deliberately funded a select few leading lights in management. Insufficient allowance was made for the Research Assessment Exercise, which measured research excellence in terms of papers published in top journals. The AIM's elite exploited its existing publishing advantage, and AIM provided further resources to aid their efforts. The AIM recruited willing acolytes to work with its elite in fashioning the sort of papers required by the top journals of management -positive papers, consensual and endlessly citable. Analysis of the publishing patterns of AIM senior fellows reveals research cliques and publication silos rather than a network organization. Much as the elite saw its AIM funding as recognition of its own excellence, so AIM itself came to be seen as acknowledgement of the excellence of management research as a whole. That AIM existed to raise management research from intellectual poverty was forgotten. The AIM was wound up in 2012, having spent £30 million, most of it on the subject's elite. The problems that beset management research remain.

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