The Trust Economy

* Why you need to build trust for business success * Explains why large companies are increasingly vulnerable to failure in the digital age* How to build trust in 6 easy, repeatable steps* How trust promotes innovation and increases your competitive advantage* Author is a popular speaker and available for events/activities

Trust is the foundation for strong working relationships, but the way people from different cultures search for and decide to trust varies. Searching for Trust in the Global Economy describes these cultural differences from the perspective of 82 managers from 33 different countries in four regions of the world. It addresses the current global business climate with insights from managers describing how the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the process of searching for and deciding to trust new business partners. Jeanne M. Brett and Tyree D. Mitchell propose a simple framework that explains the cultural differences in deciding to trust new business partners. They suggest that the key to understanding cultural differences in the process lies in the interplay between cultural levels of trust and "tightness-looseness," or the degree to which a culture strongly enforces its norms. They explain how searching for and deciding to trust is different in the high-trust, loose cultures of the West, the high-trust, tight cultures in East Asia, the low-trust, tight cultures in the Middle East/South Asia, and the low-trust, loose cultures in Latin America. Searching for Trust in the Global Economy is based on managers’ experiences building new business relationships around the world, but its practical advice for searching for and deciding to trust is useful not only for business leaders but also for government, not-for-profit, and other leaders who are responsible for building new relationships in the global economy.

Airbnb, Uber, TripAdvisor, Bitcoin, Carousell – this is the way we live today. Over the past decade, one of the most revolutionary changes in our global economy has been the creation of trusted digital intermediaries. These platforms allow us – as individuals and as businesses – to exchange value with one another in new and better ways. We are experiencing a modern relationship renaissance, enabled by technology and powered by trust.But not everyone has succeeded equally. Corporate innovation efforts are often stymied by a culture of distrust that kills creativity, impedes progress and reduces competitive advantage. As incumbents lurch from one identity crisis to another and startups flood every industry from retail to insurance, only the most trusted players will succeed. The Trust Economy introduces a world-first structured model for building trust in six progressive stages. Whatever industry you’re in, whatever the size of your business, the trust model will set you on the path to reaping the most value from the opportunities and challenges of the digital age.

Have economists neglected trust? The economy is fundamentally a network of relationships built on mutual expectations. More than that, trust is the glue that holds civilization together. Every time we interact with another person—to make a purchase, work on a project, or share a living space—we rely on trust. Institutions and relationships function because people place confidence in them. Retailers seek to become trusted brands; employers put their trust in their employees; and democracy works only when we trust our government. Benjamin Ho reveals the surprising importance of trust to how we understand our day-to-day economic lives. Starting with the earliest societies and proceeding through the evolution of the modern economy, he explores its role across an astonishing range of institutions and practices. From contracts and banking to blockchain and the sharing economy to health care and climate change, Ho shows how trust shapes the workings of the world. He provides an accessible account of how economists have applied the mathematical tools of game theory and the experimental methods of behavioral economics to bring rigor to understanding trust. Bringing together insights from decades of research in an approachable format, Why Trust Matters shows how a concept that we rarely associate with the discipline of economics is central to the social systems that govern our lives.

Trust is a pervasive catalyst of human and business relationships that has inspired interest in researchers and practitioners alike. It has been shown to enhance engagement, communication, organizational performance, and online activities. Despite its role to cultivate cooperation, knowledge-sharing, and innovation, trust through digital means or even trust in digital media has presented new opportunities and challenges in society. Examples include a wider and faster dissemination of trust-influencing messages, and richer options of digital cues that engage, disrupt, or even transform how trust is formulated. Despite that, trust helps people to live through risky and uncertain situations, and the many capabilities enabled on the digital platforms have made the formation and sustaining of trust very different compared to traditional means. Trust in today’s digital environment plays an important role and is intertwined with concepts including reliability, quality, and privacy. This book aims to bring together the theory and practice of trust in the new digital era and will present theoretical and practical foundations. Trust is not given; we must work to build it, but it is a very fragile and intangible asset once built. It is easy to destroy and challenging to rebuild. Researchers, academics, and students in the fields of management, responsibility, and business ethics will gain knowledge on trust and related concepts, learn about the theoretical underpinnings of trust and how it sustains itself through digital dissemination, and explore empirically validated practice regarding trust and its related concepts.

Alibaba, Carousell, Airbnb, Tinder... Trusted digital technology platforms are powering the new global economy, and technology is rewiring our notions of trust. Nowadays, it is normal for us to meet a partner online, stay in a stranger's house or hitch a ride with the nearest person. The effect is nothing short of a revolution. Welcome to The Trust Economy. The Trust Economy has a profound impact on our economic and social lives. While trust has always been at the core of human society, digital platforms now blur the lines between strangers and trusted connections, redefining who, what and how we trust.What does this mean for businesses and people? As the nature of trust changes, our approach to building it needs to adapt. The Trust Economy introduces a new method for effective trust-building in the digital age. It guides those seeking to understand the global shift in trust patterns and human behaviour, and explains why everyone should develop a trust strategy to thrive in this day and age.

If you want to be successful in this economy, the first thing to realize is just how incredibly different it is. No matter what the experts and business gurus are saying or predicting, the truth is that no matter what the economy does - whether it goes up or goes down - your customer has forever changed and that change will impact you and your entire business. Winning in the Trust and Value Economy is a practical how-to book for business owners, entrepreneurs, sales managers and other professionals looking to stay competitive in today's market. It offers insights into the psychology of today's customer, and reasons why the importance of customer engagement, experience, and personal connection has increased. It offers specific tips and techniques to guide a business through changes necessary to not only stay afloat, but to thrive in a way that is enjoyable for all involved. It's a book written on the principle that today's change must not be ignored, that this change is different, an economy we've never experienced before.

Trust and cooperation are at the heart of the two most important approaches to comparative politics - rational choice and political culture. Yet we know little about trust's relationship to political institutions. This book sets out a rationalist theory of how institutions - and in particular informal institutions - can affect trust without reducing it to fully determine expectations. It then shows how this theory can be applied to comparative political economy, and in particular to explaining inter-firm cooperation in industrial districts, geographical areas of intense small firm collaboration. The book compares trust and cooperation in two prominent districts in the literature, one in Emilia Romagna, Italy, and the other in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It also sets out and applies a theory of how national informal institutions may change as a result of changes in global markets, and shows how similar mechanisms may explain persistent distrust too among Sicilian Mafiosi.