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Published
by The Indonesian
Institute™ |
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JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2005 ISSUES |
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Building Trust
within Society |
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In 1972, in his study on the importance of trust to
organizational success, Professor Dale Zand at New York
University reported that, “Apparently in low trust groups,
interpersonal relationships interfere with and distort
perceptions of the problem”. He further wrote that,
“In contrast, in high trust groups there is less socially
generated uncertainty and problems are solved more
effectively.”
Built on Zand’s work, R. Wayne Boss, in a 1977 article in
the Harvard Business Review, conducted a study
which concludes that, “Under conditions of high trust,
problem solving tends to be creative and productive. Under
conditions of low trust, problem solving tends to be
degenerative and ineffective.” And in Trust in Schools:
A Core Resource for Improvement, Anthony S. Bryk and
Barbara Schneider, researchers from the University of
Chicago who examine the role of social relationships in
schools and their impact on student achievement conclude
that trust across a school community is a critical
resource in the implementation of school improvement
plans. Drawing on ten years of work in Chicago schools
during a period of sweeping reform, Bryk and Schneider
contend that schools with a high degree of “relational
trust” are far more likely to make the kinds of changes
that help raise student achievement than those where
relations are poor. Meanwhile, back in 1974, Taylor
McConnell, in his book Group Leadership for Self
Realization, wrote that “The most productive people
are the most trusting people.”
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Trust and democracy
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Trust in government is a mainstay of democracy. The legitimacy of
political and administrative institutions and actors vital to the
political process is based largely on trust. In a system of
indirect democracy the people delegate their sovereignty to these
institutions and actors, trusting that this mandate will be
handled in an appropriate way.
Perhaps the
most compelling evidence of the assertion that trust promotes
democracy is the work done by Robert Putnam in his book Making
Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy. In his
research comparing north and south Italy, Putnam
argues
that the basis of responsive, democratic government lies in civic
tradition. It follows that “civic communities”, which are patterns
of social cooperation based on trust, tolerance, and widespread
citizen participation involving “norms and networks of social
engagement”, are essential to democracy. Civic communities are
based on “a dense network of secondary associations” that build
trust and cooperation, which, in turn, lay a firm foundation for
democratic development.[i]
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Trust and economic prosperity
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Building on Putnam’s
work, Francis Fukuyama in his
1995 book Trust: The Social Values and the Creation
of Prosperity argues that differences in
economic performance across countries arise from
differences in their cultural propensities to create
trusting relations beyond their nuclear families. In
societies where economic actors are capable of trusting
and working with non-family members, they are capable of
building larger, more bureaucratic and efficient
organizations which, according to Fukuyama, are
necessary to compete in modern, high tech, and
fast-growing industries. Fukuyama argues that certain
societies can save substantially on transaction costs
because economic agents trust one another in their
interactions and therefore can be more efficient than
low trust societies, which require detailed contracts
and enforcement mechanisms.”[i]
This explains why
some societies are characterized by smaller, more
traditional and less efficient industrial structures and
others possess larger, more capital and
technology-intensive industries.
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