Knowledge@wharton

In the workplace trust is essential to day-to-day business whether it’s one colleague trusting that another will do her share of a project an employee trusting that his boss will reward him for working long hours to meet a deadline or a customer trusting that a company will fill an order correctly and deliver it on time. The intertwining issues of trust deception apologies and promises are explored in a new research paper titled ”Promises and Lies: Restoring Violated Trust ” by three Wharton professors who came up with a unique laboratory experiment to see what happens when trust breaks down. ”While deception may be tempting because it can be used to increase short-term profits for the deceiver ” the researchers note ”we find that the long-term costs of deception are very high.” See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.