Hi, I'm Severin de Wit, host of the TrustTalk podcast, where we dive deep into the fascinating world of trust. With a genuine passion for understanding the foundations and nuances of trust, I am dedicated to uncovering its secrets and sharing compelling stories that illuminate its profound impact. Join me on this captivating journey as we explore the transformative power of trust. Subscribe now and become part of the TrustTalk community
Hi, I'm Severin de Wit, host of the TrustTalk podcast, where we dive deep into the fascinating world of trust. With a genuine passion for understanding the foundations and nuances of trust, I am dedicated to uncovering its secrets and sharing compelling stories that illuminate its profound impact. Join me on this captivating journey as we explore the transformative power of trust. Subscribe now and become part of the TrustTalk community
As the ultimate expert on the role of trust between organizations, Professor ReinhardBachmann talks about the importance of risk and vulnerability: you do not need to trust if you are not vulnerable, nor if you want to avoid any kind of risk. What role play competence and integrity?
In this new episode of the TrustTalk podcast, he speaks about his research into the role of trust and power in two types of inter-organizational relationships, vertical relations (supply chain) and horizontal relations (M&A, joint venture, cooperations) the “system” or “institutional” trust in liberal capitalist countries (like in the UK) versus coordinated capitalist countries (like in Continental Europe).
In the case of acquisition transactions, two organizations need to be integrated, it is not uncommon that one side distrusts the other (job loss, uncertainty) and why is it that many M&A transactions or joint ventures fail, due to lack of trust? In organizational trust you need to see real persons who represent an organization: if it is an abstract organization and you would not associate any human face with it, it is very difficult to trust.
Too much trust is dangerous too: the global financial crisis of 2008 was for a part caused by too much trust in financial advisers (“blind trust”).
He reflects upon organizations that say they do not need trust because they can control and monitor operations more closely by technical means (surveillance, video, etc), wondering whether trust becomes obsolete (he thinks it is not).
On the definition of trust
(…) a trustor always makes positive assumptions about the future behaviour of the trustee. So I think these are common themes that run through all kinds of definitions of trust. Also, we work on the basis of limited knowledge. So if you know everything you don’t need to trust, if you know nothing then is also stupid to trust.
Competence, Integrity and Benevolence
we come to issues such as competence, but also integrity, which is a big difference. So you can trust someone on the basis of competence. You trust someone that he or she is competent enough to fulfil a certain promise, or you focus on integrity so someone can completely fulfil your criteria of integrity but is incompetent. So if that’s the case, then it’s a different situation with regard to trust, then, if that is the other way round. Someone can be very competent, but basically a crook and not trustworthy. And there are other people who would also add a third dimension, which is benevolence, so this is well established. The main difference here is really competence versus integrity.
Trust and why many M&A transactions fail
Surprisingly, a majority of acquisitions does not work very well. And one of the things is that there is a lack of trust from both sides and there are misunderstandings, there’s a problem of integrating different corporate cultures
Organizational trust and the need for a human face
when we talk about organizational trust and we think about trust in an organization, then it seems to be essential that sometimes you need to see, as Anthony Giddens has said in one of his famous writings on modernity and trust into the whites of eyes of people. So you have to have access points to the organizations, and that needs to be persons. Sometimes you have to see real persons who represent the organization. So if it’s just an abstract organization and you would not associate any human face with it, it would be very difficult to trust it for many people.
Interview with subtitles (TrustTalk YouTube channel)
“The most important ingredient in all vaccines is trust,” says Prof. Barry Bloom, the Joan L. and Julius H. Jacobson Research Professor of Public Health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “Without trust, a vaccine doesn’t do much good in the world.”
Bloom, with co-authors Glen Nowak of the University of Georgia and Walter Orenstein of Emory University’s School of Medicine, wrote a recent “Perspective” article in the New England Journal of Medicine calling for a major effort to build public trust in an eventual vaccine. The three say that the gap between the 50 percent of Americans who’ve said they’d accept a COVID-19 vaccine and the 60 to 70 percent believed needed to reach the threshold for “herd immunity” — at which enough people are immune that transmission is interrupted — “will take substantial resources and active, bipartisan political support to achieve the uptake levels needed.” The estimated shortfall amounts to about 33 to 66 million Americans.
Bloom, former dean of the Harvard Chan School, said in remarks to the media on Monday that misinformation distributed through social media and recent public tussles over the effectiveness of COVID treatments like hydroxychloroquine (which was granted emergency-use authorization, later revoked) have undermined public trust that vaccine candidates will be rigorously studied and widely administered only when determined safe and effective, without regard to political, economic, or other concerns.
(…)
Once a vaccine is approved, Bloom and his NEJM co-authors wrote, distribution will be affected by which strategy is pursued. One focusing on limiting illness and death may target health care workers, nursing home residents, prison inmates, and others at highest risk. But that strategy, they pointed out, may not be the most effective at halting community wide transmission. Such a plan would likely target essential workers, young people, and others who are responsible for most transmissions.
Without trust, however, even those within the selected demographics may not universally embrace a vaccine. Bloom and his co-authors said a major information campaign may be needed that enlists both those who have retained the public’s confidence, such as doctors, nurses and pharmacists, and the private sector, whose expertise at communications and advertising far outstrips that of public health experts. They harkened to the one mounted by the March of Dimes, a nonprofit begun in the late 1930s that supported research that led to the introduction of the Salk polio vaccine in 1955.
“High uptake of COVID-19 vaccines among prioritized groups should also not be assumed,” Bloom and co-authors wrote. “Many people in these groups will want to be vaccinated, but their willingness will be affected by what is said, the way it is said, and who says it in the months to come.”
