Economics and Management of Trust

label Diverse autorenew 2025-09-29, 17:01 history_edu Cristian Ion
Since the late 1970s trust problems increasingly attract the attention of scholars and practitioners in economics and management science. An explanation of this observation are theoretical developments in economics and the insights and experience of both theorists and practitioners that trust building and maintenance can contribute to a better performance of markets, firms and government in competitive market economies. Economics of Trust and Management of Trust have emerged in the past thirty years as two different sub disciplines in Economics and Management Science. Though both sub disciplines focus on a better understanding of the economic role of trust and the development of management solutions to trust problems in competitive market economies they have independently developed their own approaches. An integration of the different approaches is lacking but warranted not the less because markets, firms and government are linked and linkages cannot be neglected in any analysis of the impact trust has on the development and performance of competitive market economies. The course Economics and Management of Trust aims at providing a more fully developed economic account of trust by integrating economic and management views on trust problems in an analytical framework that allows a thorough discussion of economic trust problems in competitive market economies. The course consists of lectures, self-study, group discussions and presentations of case-studies on solutions to trust problems of markets and organizations. The lectures present observations of trust, introduce concepts of interpersonal and institutional trust and confidence, discuss solutions to economic trust problems and the impact of trust on the performance of markets, firms and government. Particular attention will be paid in the lectures and case-studies to trust building and maintenance and the development of high trust in private and public organizations. Attendants will learn how organizations can build, maintain and trust relationships and to assess companies as high trust organizations.Outlines• Observations of differing trust levels across countries worldwide• Trust concepts• Measurement of trust• Databanks on trust• Interpersonal and institutional trust as key concepts in Economics and Management of Trust• Development and instability of multilateral interpersonal trust relationships and institutional trust• Interpersonal and institutional trust in competitive market economies• Economic trust problems in competitive market economies• Economic trust problems in organizations• Solutions to trust problems• Impact of trust problem solutions on economic performance• Principles of trust management• Definition of high trust organizations• Measurement of multilateral trust in and between organizations• Assessment of high trust organizations

Period
04-08-2014 - 15-08-2014 (2 weeks)

Target group
third year bachelor students in economics or business, third year bachelor students with a minor in economics or business, master students in economics or business MBA graduates PhD students Professionals working in management positions and being interested in learning more about management of trust, in particular trust building, maintenance and restoring trust in public and private organizations.

Course aim
At the end of the course the participant can describe multilateral trust relationships of economic agents in market economies, can describe existing datasets of trust, knows different definitions of trust used in existing datasets, knows how trust differs across countries worldwide, can define interpersonal trust, institutional trust and confidence as key concepts of economics and management of trust, can define an economic trust problem knows how trust relationships develop and why trust comes by foot and leaves on horseback, knows about the (in)stability of trust relationships in market economies, can distinguish between trust and trust substitutes as solutions to economic trust problems, can assess existing economic theories that deal implicitly or explicitly with trust, describe optimal decisions in trust situations under imperfect and asymmetric information, can describe and discuss the impact of different solutions to economic trust problems on economic performance, knows the principles of management of trust, knows about management problems of trust building, trust maintenance and trust restoring can describe high and low trust organizations, is informed about procedures to assess and certify high trust organizations, can assess the economic performance of certified high trust organizations, knows organizations that promote trust building in organizations, can work in teams to assess the trustworthiness of organizations.



Credits
3.0 ECTS credits

Course fee
EUR 750[Convert to USD]Course plus course materials

Course leader
Prof. Dr. Peter de Gijsel

Scholarships
Not available.

Maastricht University + Maastricht School of Management Student Service Centre
Address: Bonnefantenstraat 2 P.O. Box 616
Postal code: 6211 KL Maastricht
City: Maastricht
Country: Netherlands
Website: http://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/summerschool
E-mail: summerschool@maastrichtuniversity.nl
Phone: +31433885295