Trust and Ethics

Now that we have covered the DTM and how it is applied, we can focus on an important question that should be addressed early in this book: What is the relationship between trust and ethics? Organizations often spend a good deal of time on ethics policies and programs but often fail to properly relate them to trust. As we shall see, ethical people and companies are not always trustworthy.

To address this question, let's consider an example. Imagine that there is a natural disaster on an island, and the water supply is contaminated. You are the CEO of the only bottled water company within a thousand miles. Rational principles of economics suggest that you raise the price to the point where demand will be lowered to meet the supply, and you will earn handsome profits. One group of observers might call this good economics. Another group might call it price gouging. But does raising the price to an extremely high level feel right? Research on social reciprocity and ethics indicates that most people would think it is not “right” because it seems to be an extreme case of taking advantage of misfortune and maximizing self-interest....11