Guiding clients through the unknown
The growth of technology as a means of conducting relationships and transactions is changing the role of trust in business and beyond. In her column, Catherine McGregor explores how the concept of trust is evolving and what the upshot is for in-house lawyers.
Academic and Thinkers50 honouree Rachel Botsman is focused on trust. Of late, that focus has looked at how technology has shifted our understanding of trust and impacted on both our personal and professional lives.
In particular, Botsman is quick to draw a distinction between ‘trust’ and ‘trustworthiness’. The former is generally thought of as a state of mind engendered by the latter. ‘Trustworthiness’, therefore, can be defined as a set of qualities that inspire trust, and is arguably more measurable, because trust can be influenced by emotional factors. There’s a symbiotic relationship between the two, but they do not always follow on from each other; hence we can instinctively trust someone, or feel that someone is trustworthy – without trusting them yet.
