- January 22, 2015
- 10:03 am
- Raymond Benton Jr
- no comments
Edelman’s Trust Barometer for 2015
Edelman, the public relations firm, produces an annual Trust Barometer. The 2015 Edelman Trust Barometer is the 15th in the series. For this one they surveyed 33,000 people (27,000 general public and 6,000 informed public) in 27 countries. The issue is trust – the public’s trust in the institutions of government, media, business, and NGOs. Of course, anybody that has taken a survey research course knows they should look into the questions asked – exactly how were they asked – before trusting the trust barometer. Nevertheless …
Globally, trust has declined over the last year. In fact, it has fallen to an all-time low among the informed public. Trust is down for all major institutions (government, interestingly, fare the best). Trust in business faltered – for the first time since the end of the Great Recession. (Many will ask if it has ended. Apparently it has.)
Of the drivers of change in business, 70 percent perceive it to be technology. Only 24 percent believe it to be a desire to make the world a better place. It looks like Loyola’s Quinlan School of Business has its work cut out for it; but then, again, there is a huge door for us to walk through. Perhaps it is begging us to come in. Now for a comment that is likely to just get me into trouble. Maybe we need less utilitarian and Kantian ethics in our business ethics classes and more Hans Jonas (The Imperative of Responsibility), Iris Murdock (The Sovereignty of Good) and Peter Levine (Living Without Philosophy). Just a thought.
Back to the survey results. The media people most trust is search engines. Both traditional media and social media loose out. We have more trust in electronic and mobile payments than we do in genetically modified foods (which is just below hydraulic fracturing on the — scale). Among the informed public (those with higher incomes and more education), the sense is that the pace of change, in business, is too fast (51 percent). Only 19 percent feel is about right, and 28 percent feeling it is too slow.
Find out more at http://www.edelman.com/trust2015. (Unfortunately, some of their links to details of their report didn’t work at the time I read this. Maybe they will have fixed them by the time you look at it.)