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Both explicitly and implicitly, the central role of my writing is given to social trust, especially to its role in sustainable social futuring as a form of agile society in the twenty-first century. I consider the characterisation of trust a crucial notion as a theoretical frame of my paper. In the first part of my writing, I plan to introduce trust as social capital opposed to financial capital and other forms of human capital, its role in agile society building, focussing on its function as a social connective tissue. The theoretical part will be followed by a retrospection to the twentieth century Industry 4.0 peculiarities as a way that leads societal actors to the creation of Society 5.0 on a scientific, technological and political level. I intend to prove or confute statements regarding the relationship between social trust and the space for inclusive and sustainable social futuring, and Industry 4.0 peculiarities and inventions as a way of creating Society 5.0 and generating greater trust towards it. Finally, I plan to draw conclusions of the lessons of social futuring activities as a tool of creating agile society. I find this paper an especially important one in addressing the challenges of social trust building, of finding the appropriate steps towards the creation of an agile and responsive society and in describing the characterisations of Society 5.0.

Public trust in institutions in Iceland plunged after the country’s banking sector collapsed. The political system wobbled under outrage and anger when the general public took to the streets. The Parliamentary Special Investigation Commission conducted a ground-breaking crisis-induced investigation, delivering a report that was a milestone in Iceland’s history of politics and public administration. Yet, despite this endeavour and the fact that subsequent investigations have disclosed ample information intended to restore trust in institutions, public trust remains unsteady. This chapter addresses the following questions: How has public trust in institutions progressed after the crash? Why is it taking so long for trust to return? In Chapter 3 in this volume, we examine data on public trust in Icelandic institutions from Gallup surveys over the 15 years from 2002 to 2017 in order to identify and explain patterns of trust in the aftermath of the crisis. Our interpretation of theory in this chapter suggests that elements of mistrust inherent in the principal–agent approach to accountability in public administration, implemented in previous New Public Management reforms, undermined the creation of a climate of trust necessary to ensure effective accountability mechanisms. We argue that in the absence of a climate of trust, accountability mechanisms of culpability that conflict with mechanisms of answerability, combined with a succession of post-crisis scandals, mainly explain the slow return of the public’s trust.

Building trust and living interpersonal trust are crucial corporate executive virtues that are needed today. Once you have developed and solidified a high level of genuine interpersonal trust with all your stakeholders, especially customers, suppliers, and employees, then you are on the right path of managing and transforming your company. A high level of interpersonal trust between all stakeholders and corporates in a business situation will break down communication barriers, foster serious conversation and sharing of ideas, and will eliminate corporate transactional anxieties of fear, mistrust, guilt, rigidity, blame, and resentment. When stakeholders trust you and you trust them, then you speak freely, they speak freely, and your mutual sustained transparency is a gateway to survival, revival, and sustained corporate recovery and transformation, and steady growth and prosperity. Conversely, when there is low trust, high mistrust, and high distrust among stakeholders in a business situation, communications and conversations are stressed and fragmented, teamwork and team spirit are very low, and the company is heading toward its ruin and extermination. Such is the crucial role of interpersonal trust in business. This chapter explores the crucial phenomenon of corporate interpersonal trust. We review various cases, models, concepts, definitions, and theories of trust from the management literature in general, and from the marketing field in particular, to derive psychological, behavioral, ethical, and moral principles of corporate trust, trusting relations, and trusting strategies.

The left-hand side of Eq. (1) denotes the rate of change of Indian military expenditure. k and n are positive constants, which, following Richardson's terminology, can be called “defence coefficients.” It is difficult to obtain data for China's defence expenditure. If they are not available, we can try to employ some index numbers or use some proxy variables. This Eq. (1) represents the mistrust and suspicion on the part of India against Pakistan and China. It is true that mistrust is a qualitative aspect of a state of mind. However, we assume that military expenditure is a satisfactory yardstick for measuring it.

Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to explore the voluntary corporate governance role played by credit rating agencies, closing the ‘trust at a distance’ gap which might otherwise hinder fundraising in debt capital markets.

Methodology/approach – The chapter draws on Giddens’ system trust theory and Foucauldian perspectives of knowledge/power to unpack trust production as a discursive process in financial markets. Foucauldian discourse analytic techniques are used to examine texts deployed by or about Standard & Poor's, the global credit rating agency, leading up to the 2007 credit crunch.

Findings – The texts analysed illustrate the influence of rating agencies in producing trust as well as mistrust in debt instruments.

Research limitations/implications – Rating agencies produce trust by aligning with state regulatory systems, simplifying complex debt instruments with ‘AAA’ and other well-known mnemonics, as well as offering apparent transparency and guarantees.

Practical implications – While influential, rating agencies can only produce trust by proxy. Their contribution to the actual protection of investments is minimal.

Social implications – The analysis highlights the flawed nature of trust relations in debt capital markets as rating agencies’ primary customers are the arrangers and issuers of debt rather than the investors who seek protection from risk.

Originality/value – The chapter sheds light on the deliberate nature of trust production in financial markets. Five trust/mistrust production practices are introduced – protecting, guaranteeing, aligning, making visible and simplifying. Strategic trust production is established as part of corporate governance ideology in financial markets.

While the concept of legal culture has been receiving a growing attention from scholars, this research often overemphasizes the similarity of the opinions held by different segments of population. Furthermore, the relationship of migration and the change of legal-cultural attitudes has not received particular attention. Drawing on 70 in-depth interviews with the immigrants of the early 1990s from the former Soviet Union to Israel and the secular Israeli Jews, this chapter provides a comprehensive account of the various aspects of legal culture of these groups. The second important finding is the persistence of the legal-cultural attitudes and perceptions over time.

Is public entrepreneurship an oxymoron? Why and how is enterprise/entrepreneurship important for public service delivery? The growing role of enterprise within the public sector has been the subject of much recent debate and policy focus, surrounding issues such as public value, meeting targets, and the need for innovation across public services by policy makers and managers given rapid reduction of budgets in this sector. This chapter reflects on these developments and examines the effects that an enterprise focus in the public services has in terms of vocation. Drawing on the Weberian notion of vocation (1941) in politics and the sciences, what does enterprise mean for the notion of public service? Certainly, historically the public services have enjoyed a strong vocational drive from its workforce, resulting in employee loyalty, and links with communities as well as higher levels of public trust than politicians or bankers, for example. The chapter draws on examples from education, public services and localism, all of which have seen to some degree the parachuting of managers in from the private sector or the aping of these behaviours and cultures in search of more entrepreneurial delivery. Drawing on the Weberian framework of bureaucracy and vocation, the chapter examines the changing role of public service and notions of community and duty, arguably damaged by failures of the Big Society agenda (Shand & Higman, 2014; Smith, 2010) and examines if and how enterprise can maintain the ethos of public service and vocational areas of the public sector in the enduring and pressurised new public management environment of meeting targets and value metrics.

The chapter adopts a Weberian approach in terms of vocation, and applies this concept to the notion of enterprise across the public services. The vocation approach in the public services, drawing upon Weber’s discussion of politics and science, underpins our discussion in this chapter as we argue that the role of innovation needs to be more widely applied and appreciated in the public services.

The chapter finds that examples of innovative behaviour and delivery are evident across the public services, but these need to be understood within the context of culture, values and ethos. These underpinning goals, across several frontline and first respondent public services particularly, are driven by dedication to duty and having to respond to rapid changes in targets, ‘customer’ service, and most recently, austerity. These responses need to be seen as innovative traits, linked to leadership and the Weberian notion of vocation.

The chapter raises several issues driven by failures or mistrust in the practical delivery and underpinning ethos of the public services. The focus on ethos has direct implications for both leadership within the public services and how these leaders’ roles and actions are interpreted by sections of wider society such as the media or the public. Notions of public trust are touched upon in the chapter, which highlight the role of key public services as different from the activities of politicians and bankers, areas which have become central to growing attitudes of mistrust among the public. The notion of vocation in the chapter is applicable to the practical arena as the role of innovation in public service needs to be reconsidered. The chapter suggests that, to date, the idea of innovation in public services has been driven by private sector innovation, and this has led to far too narrow an appreciation of what we term innovation within and across the public services.

This chapter unites debates around trust and innovation in the public and private sectors with the Weberian ideal of vocation, drawing upon key public services and their leadership and delivery to argue that we need to understand the drivers and motivating ethos behind the public services when we consider the role of innovation and indeed how we understand and apply this term within public service delivery.