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If public trust in health care is to be used as a performance indicator for health care systems, its measurement has to be sensitive to changes in the health care system. For this purpose, this study has monitored public trust in health care in The Netherlands over an eight‐year period, from 1997 to 2004. The study expected to find a decrease in public trust, with a low point in 2002.

Since 1997, public trust in health care was measured through postal questionnaires to the “health care consumer panel”. This panel consists of approximately 1,500 households and forms a representative sample of the Dutch population.

Trust in health care and trust in hospitals did not show any significant trend. Trust in medical specialists displayed an upward trend. Trust in future health care, trust in five out of six dimensions of health care and trust in general practitioners actually did show a decrease. However, only for trust in macro level policies and trust in professional expertise this trend continued. For the remaining trust objects, after 1999 or 2000, an upward trend set in.

No support was found for our overall assumption. Explanations for the fact that trust did increase after 1999 or 2000 are difficult to find. On the basis of these findings the study questions whether the measure of public trust is sensitive enough to provide information on the performance of the health care system.

The aim of this research is to study public trust in health care on its abilities to be used as a performance indicator for health care systems.

During the past few years, public trust in organisations, institutions and systems has decreased. Trust is an important antecedent not only for relationship-building but also for image and reputation management. This study aims to systematically review scientific publications on public relations and trust to explore the current status of trust research, including its conceptual definition, measurement and theorisation.

Only English-language scientific papers published in key public relations journals were analysed. Titles, abstracts and keywords were searched with the terms “public relations” and/or “strategic communication” and/or “communication management” and “trust”, returning 254 discrete articles. Quantitative content analysis and thematic analysis were used to extract information.

Trust research has limited methodological and intellectual diversity. Most studies have been published by North American scholars using surveys and interviews as the primary methods, and most are positioned within the public relations literature. One-third of papers do not use any specific theory to define trust, and about 13% of those in which trust is a central element do not refer to any conceptual foundation. The majority of papers are centred on professional and managerial problems, with limited discussion of publics/stakeholders' or societal problems.

This study offers important information about the development of trust research in public relations and sheds light on current knowledge gaps that can inform future research.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze public trust during the aftermath of technological and hybrid natural-technological/natech disasters – Hurricane Katrina (2005) and the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear meltdown in Japan (2011). The work identifies common themes, actions and inactivity that can lead to citizens distrusting the government after disasters.

News reports from the two areas leading newspapers formed the body of the Hurricane Katrina and the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear meltdown case studies. Of key interest were emerging themes of trust and/or distrust during the immediate impact phase of the disaster in addition to government failures and social breakdowns resulting in a loss of trust in government institutions and individual leaders.

The series of examples illustrate how specific action or in-action by local and federal governments served as a catalyst for a loss of trust in government institutions and individual leaders in government while proposing potential strategies to help public leaders reduce distrust during times of crisis.

The two limitations were the use of only newspapers and the passage of a new law in 2013, the “Specially Designated Secrets Protection Law,” designed to limit news reporting of the press in Japan on the issue of nuclear radiation exposure of the general public in Japan, some of the new data are not available.

The research concludes by offering specific ways to regain trust after a perception of failure during pre- and post-disaster management in the age of mega disasters. The paper lists several recommendations that can be practically implemented to develop a culture of transparent communication, civic engagement in planning processes and inspire trust among stakeholders.

While the paper identifies barriers to establishing trust among government agencies, the citizenry and private industry, it seeks to help inform policy frameworks regarding the importance of the government’s ability to sustain a strong sense of trust that engenders civic participation in preserving or regaining trust in the aftermath of disasters.

The article seeks to present first findings regarding the nature of discrepancies in communication and action and draws conclusions to induce further research. Although (internationally) operating organisations are far too complex to avoid discrepancies at all in corporate communication and action, monitoring discrepancies and developing strategies to deal with them, can be a contributing factor in avoiding losses of public trust or public trust crises.

Building on the theory of public trust and the ongoing corporate trust study conducted by the University of Leipzig and PMG Presse Monitor GmbH, the authors designed a content analytical study researching the role of discrepancies in the process of public trust.

Owing to the nature of the mass media system and the public sphere emerging out of it, discrepancies start to unfold their effect when crossing the barrier of publics awareness. The upcoming of a large number of discrepancies within a short period of time, and their remainder in the public conciousness for a certain period, makes it more likely that the issue which is subject to the discrepancies is going to be discussed in the public arena and leads to a change in the behavior of the audience and the environment of the organizational system.

Because of the nature of content analysis, only published public trust was researched. Researching public trust would have meant using a survey design, which has to be done in future research.

The study suggests three steps, monitoring and distinction of, and focussing on discrepancies in order to organize corporate communications more effectively.

This study is the first study researching the role of discrepancies in the process of losing/gaining public trust/confidence, regarding organizations in economy.

This study seeks to provide further testing of access in the context of government – community relations within the political context of the Republic of North Macedonia. The study analyses relationship cultivation strategy of access and explains how it contributes to achieving trust and relationship satisfaction in government–community relations. This paper also provides insights into the importance of access to achieving positive government–community relations based on mutual trust and satisfaction.

For this research, a qualitative inquiry was conducted, and qualitative in-depth interviewing was used as the main research method. In total, 39 interviews were conducted: 12 interviews with Macedonian civil servants, eight interviews with Albanian civil servants and 19 interviews with Albanians.

The findings of this study showed citizens not to have enough access to government and its institutions. Besides, the results showed access to be crucial to building positive government–community relations based on mutual trust and satisfaction. In particular, discrimination and social distance were crucial in building trust between government and citizens.

The study provided evidence on the importance and contribution of the cultivation strategy of access to government-community relationships in general and to the relational outcomes of trust and satisfaction in particular. The findings supported the initial assumptions that access constitutes an important factor in predicting the government–community relationship quality.

Television has long been cited by viewers as their primary and most trusted source of news, especially in relation to news of national and international affairs. Aims to explore the issue of trust in the television news.

The paper combines narrative and analysis. Questions whether public trust in the BBC was damaged by the Hutton inquiry: would the BBC's reputation as the nation's premier news service be tarnished in the longer‐term and had public trust in journalism been severely compromised.

Events that followed the transmission of a report about the veracity of the government's case for going to war carried by a BBC radio news broadcast on 29 May 2003 called into question the Corporation's competence as a reliable news provider. The story alleged that an informed source had told BBC correspondent Andrew Gilligan that the government had exaggerated the immediacy of dangers posed to the west by Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. The source who was eventually exposed was a Ministry of Defence expert on Iraq, Dr David Kelly, who later killed himself. The Prime Minister ordered a public inquiry into Dr Kelly's death, led by Lord Hutton, who severely criticised the competence of the BBC's senior management and the quality of its journalism practices. These conclusions prompted the resignation of the Corporation's Chairman and Director General. Hutton's findings had wider implications for the future governance of the BBC and invoked far‐reaching questions about the trust that the public could place in journalism. The evidence indicates that while the public felt that the BBC had been culpable for failing to launch its own internal inquiry into the Gilligan report, the public perceived this incident as a one‐off aberration rather than as being symptomatic of some wider malaise. Indeed, the Hutton inquiry had impacted more upon public trust in the government and led people to question the independence of the Hutton inquiry.

While trust in journalists is far from universal, the public differentiate among journalists in terms of the news organisations they work for. Among these, the BBC remains one of the most widely trusted.

An exploration of the issue of trust in the television news following the Dr David Kelly/Andrew Gilligan report on “The Today Programme” and subsequent Hutton enquiry.

The purpose of this paper is to present an empirical study and contribute to the discussion of administrative ethics and integrity by investigating three ethical issues, namely trust, good governance and unethical actions in the Finnish public administration.

The evidence of this research is based on empirical data from a National Citizen Survey implemented in 2008 by the University of Vaasa. The questionnaire was sent to 5,000 Finnish citizens and the response rate was 40.4 percent.

The strength of the Finnish society concerning trust is that the citizens feel confident in public sector organizations and societal institutions. Even though serious corruption cases have remained few in Finland, there is still work to do in order to keep the situation under control. Ignorant and bad treatment of citizens occurs mostly in individual service encounters, it does not reflect the whole of the ethics of administration.

Further research is needed in order to investigate the societal background factors that can explain the different findings from the research questions. Also further research is required for comparing the results of different countries.

Strengths and weaknesses are identified as a tool for further research and for the work for practitioners.

The core contribution of the paper is a contribution to knowledge concerning citizens' perceptions of trust, good governance and unethical actions in an egalitarian society.

Public cooperation with the police is of great significance in the maintenance of social security and social harmony, but studies investigating the mechanisms of public cooperation with the police in China are scarce. Using survey data obtained from Xiamen, China, the purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of social capital on willingness to cooperate with the police and their mediating mechanisms.

Data with 938 respondents were used in this study. Ordinary least squares regression models were used to test the influence of social capital on the willingness of the Chinese public to cooperate with the police and its mediating mechanisms.

The results show that associational life participation, social trust and neighborhood cohesion can all enhance public willingness to cooperate with the police by cultivating public spirit or trust in government, whereas participation in community collective resistance is negatively correlated with willingness to cooperate with the police. Theoretical explanations are offered to understand different effects of social capital elements on public cooperation with the police, and possible ways to foster such cooperation are discussed.

This paper takes the lead in examining the effects of social capital on willingness to cooperate with the police and their mediating mechanisms in China.

This study aims to investigate the correlation between public trust and the performance of collaborative e-governance, with a particular emphasis on trust in government institutions as the central aspect of inquiry. It assesses how public trust influences e-governance performance through the lens of good governance principles, encompassing evaluations of trust in government services and trust in the technological infrastructure used for citizen services.

The research framework is based on a thorough literature review, pilot study and practical experience. An empirical survey was conducted using a structured questionnaire to collect primary data from individuals who have used specific e-governance projects. To conduct the survey, the author used the snowball sampling method both offline and online. The author analysed the data using SmartPLS Version 3 to assess the measurement and structural model.

The study rigorously examines and confirms all formulated hypotheses using robust statistical analyses. Nonetheless, the results underscore the pivotal significance of the reliability and utility of e-governance services in nurturing public trust. Furthermore, the research unveils a troubling concern pertaining to the absence of tailored responses to citizen inquiries, grievances and recommendations, indicating an area of vulnerability in the effort to cultivate public trust.

The research has implications for managers, citizens and researchers. It focuses on public trust in interaction-based collaboration, but researchers may extend it to other forms like content-based collaboration. Policymakers can implement the findings in present and future e-governance projects. Limitations include a moderate sample size, country context, and not assessing other factors that may influence public trust in collaborative e-governance performance.

This study contributes to the existing body of knowledge by exploring the link between good governance, public trust and collaborative e-governance performance. It focuses on projects that require physical visits to government offices, where public trust has been impacted. This study is unique because it assesses public trust in collaborative e-governance, specifically in the context of India, where there is limited prior research on this topic exists.

The author studies the determinants of public trust in government doctors and hospitals (DH) – a crucial indicator of the quality of a country's healthcare system – in India by analyzing the India Human Development Survey (IHDS) 2011–2012.

The author uses descriptive statistics and a set of ordered probit regression models controlling for a set of individual-specific, household-level and other covariates and analyze across heterogeneous contexts (national/rural/urban/male heads/female heads/social groups).

Across contexts, people reporting a great deal of trust in private DH (PDH) are significantly more likely to report a great deal of trust in government DH. Those people with a great deal of trust in government schools to provide good education (vis-à-vis people with only some trust in government school) have significantly higher likelihood of reporting a great deal of trust in government DH. Visiting a private doctor last time (vis-à-vis a government doctor) makes reporting higher trust levels in government DH less likely.

India's healthcare system is afflicted with several resource allocation problems and low public trust issues are indicative of misgovernance. In presence of limited state capacity, ubiquitous corruption and underwhelming institutional trust, understanding the factors influencing public trust in healthcare providers is critical to designing appropriate trust-enhancing public health policies.

Given the sparse empirical literature on public trust in healthcare systems in the developing countries such as India, this study is a pertinent contribution as the study explains the determinants of public trust in DH using a comprehensive unit-recorded household survey dataset.