The bright side and dark side of trust: The mediating effect of franchisor trust on performance.

Previous literature has not examined the dual role of trust in franchise relationships. We extend the franchise and relational governance literature by showing that trust has both a "bright side" and a "dark side" in franchisor-franchisee relationships. Based on transaction cost and knowledge-based reasoning, we argue that intangible knowledge assets and environmental uncertainty have an indirect effect on performance via trust, due to its relational risk and knowledge exchange effect.