In this tutorial you will:

• Learn social frameworks for understanding and cultivating trust
• Map the definitions, measures, and practices of trust in your own space
• Apply frameworks most relevant to your organization, industry, constituencies, or markets
• Collaboratively identify and address factors that hinder trust
• Examine trust in critical areas, including AI and healthcare

It’s practically business orthodoxy that trust = growth = trust, but trust remains poorly conceptualized and mismeasured in many organizations. Meanwhile, executives overestimate the levels of trust customers and employees have in their organizations, AI and emerging technologies are heightening trust issues across industry, and trust in institutions of all kinds has been in decline in many countries.

So how should you handle requests from your organization or clients to address this complex challenge?

In this interactive tutorial, you’ll learn and apply social insights that enhance trust research and strategy. Anthropology teaches us that trust is much more than willingness to buy or use a product or service. It is a social orientation toward the future, nurtured by the gradual accumulation of positive experiences, and sometimes requiring a leap of faith. It is also a multifaceted and relational process that can profoundly impact your sector and positioning within it.

We will start by exploring several social science concepts of trust:

• Trust as strategy – a deliberate, strategic tool employed in uncertain situations.
• Trust as affect – a mood or disposition, often unspoken and unarticulated, but powerful in shaping behavior.
• Trust as lubricant – practices that are essential to the smooth operation of organizations and industries.
• Trust as relationship – exchanges that help negotiate trust, even in the absence of complete knowledge.

Next, we will apply the concept(s) that best fit your professional needs. Participants will map how trust is defined, operationalized, and measured in their organization and industry, exploring both explicit language, methods, and tools, and implicit beliefs and practices. Then, we will use new trust concepts to enhance the way we frame our problem spaces, design research, navigate organizational practices, and cultivate trust with stakeholders, customers, constituencies, or markets.

Collectively, we will develop strategies to address factors that limit the way trust is measured and cultivated. We will also work through case studies of trust in critical areas like AI and health care.

Who Will Benefit from This Tutorial?

The tutorial is ideal for researchers, designers, strategists, ethics and compliance officers, and other professionals who engage with trust issues in industry, social service, and policy settings. No specific background is required.

Assignments

Participants will complete a reflection exercise prior to the session in preparation for the application of course material to their work.

Instructor

Dr. Caroline Parker is Deputy Director of the Social Data Institute and an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at University College London. She also is the founder of Learning in Prison, a Community Interest Company dedicated to expanding access to higher education in prisons across the United Kingdom. Caroline is widely published in top journals, including the New England Journal of Medicine and American Ethnologist, and is the author of the book Carceral Citizens: Labour and Confinement in Puerto Rico (University of Chicago Press).