The Neuroeconomic View on Trust: Etical, Practical and Theoretical Implications in the Realm of Organizations

Almost all social interations between people, but also within and between social groups rely on trust. Thus trust is one of the most relevant social phenomena, influencing our thinking, our feelings, our decisions and the way we act. The decision to trust typically requires the willingness of one party to rely on the actions of another party. Examples of trust relationships within organizations start at the individual level, e.g. people working together in a team, and develop into intra-organizational constellations, like teams sharing ideas or differnet departments working together on joint projects. But also the organizations itself is judged according to its trustworthiness by its internal and external stakeholders. Therefore, managing trust relationships is of key importance to organizational live. Challenges of managing these trust relationships are manifold and become the worst if negative experiences lead to a breakdown of trust. Organizations are therefore dependent on guidance on how to build, maintain, and rebuild trust across all organzational levels. The present book benchmarks to what extent a neuroeconomic view of trust can advance existing theoretical conceptualizations and can be of managerial help for organizational practice. It thus illustrates the practical help for organizational practice. It thus illustrates the practical relevance of trust an pictures the existing theoretival relevance of trust and pictures the existing theoretical landscape of already existing approaches to trust. Unlike other theoretical concepts, neuroeconomics starts to explain trust at the level of an individual´s brain. This is possible due to its interdisciplinary access using neuroscientific methods, psychological theories, and economic models. As a result, new insights of understanding trust are at hand and worth to be discussed for its theoretical and practical insights.