Definition of Trustworthiness

Now I work for a cross-border crowdfunding investment startup in Tokyo. This might sound a bit complicated but what we do is simple. We raise funds from Japanese investors (mainly individuals) online and invest it in emerging markets.

Capital is becoming more and more borderless. Now an entrepreneur in, say Cameroon or Peru, can raise funds from Japanese individuals.

The motto of our company is “connecting credit markets around the world.”

By the way, what is credit?

Surely in finance industry, it means something like

money that a bank or business will allow a person to use and then pay back in the future

a record of how well you have paid your bills in the past

an amount of money that is added to an account

(http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/credit)

However, originally it means trust.

Unless your receipt of cash and provision of goods or services happen simultaneously, trust is essential in business. If there is no trust, there is no business. This is what they always say. Agree.

But what does this word “trust” really mean?

Who is a trustworthy person? What kind of company is a trustworthy company?

For example, in Japan, it is generally considered that unpunctual people are not trustworthy.

But is this rule of thumb applicable everywhere?

Maybe in some other regions of the world, punctuality is not an important feature to judge if one is trustworthy or not.

Certainly, there is a big difference among nations regarding what feature is considered to be a sign of trustworthiness.

This might be the reason why the world is not fully globalized.

You don’t live a single day without hearing a word globalization if you are in a business sector. Globalization became such a popular topic especially after Thomas Friedman published The world is flat.

However, as Ghemawat (2011) pointed out, the world economy is not fully globalized at all.

Why? There might be physical factors that prevent goods and services from moving around the world.

But I feel like the biggest obstacle lies somewhere else. It’s in people’s head.

Since the definition of trustworthiness varies depending on nations, regions, cultures, religions, etc etc, people who have different definitions tend to misunderstand each other and hence, no business.

If you think your business partner is not trustworthy, it is highly likely that your business partner is thinking the same thing.

It might be useful to remember that a trustworthy person in your culture becomes completely untrustworthy in a different place.

References

Friedman, T. L. (2005). The world is flat: A brief history of the twenty-first century. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Ghemawat, P. (2011). World 3.0: Global prosperity and how to achieve it. Boston, Mass: Harvard Business Review Press.