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Koreans’ trust of businesses remains lowest in the world

February 10, 2016

Ben Boyd, president of Edelman’s Practices, Sectors and Offerings, speaks during a recent interview at the company’s Seoul office. (Courtesy of Edelman Korea)

By Park Jin-hai

Edelman, a PR agency that announces Trust Barometer global survey each year, says Korea has the lowest trust in its companies among 28 countries surveyed.

Ben Boyd, Edelman’s president of Practices, Sectors and Offerings, said Korea’s overall trust level has improved slightly.

But he said the public’s trust of businesses remains the lowest in the world at 35 percent, while the global average was 58 percent.

“Korea’s trust level for businesses has hit the lowest in countries surveyed,” said Boyd.

The 2016 Edelman Trust Barometer measures levels through 33,000 respondents in government, business, NGOs and media.

“The chaebol model is clearly under a lot of scrutiny,” Boyd said. “The stories this past year around the struggles within the families for control called in questions of motivation of these businesses and this chaebol model.”

This year the trust level was focused more on the role of CEOs. Boyd said in Korea, the most important factor in ranking a company was the integrity of its CEO.

The Edelman study found 75 percent of Koreans perceived that Korean CEOs focus too much on lobbying, compared with 57 percent of respondents globally.

The single-most important CEO behavior in Korea was taking responsibility to tackle issues or crises. Of 16 total factors, this ranked highest in Korea, because it relates to CEOs here, Boyd said.

“Korean respondents believe CEOs spend way too much time on lobbying and short-term financial interests,” he said. “Those same respondents don’t believe that they spend enough time on long-term impact and job creation.”

Sixty percent of Korean respondents placed great importance on CEOs’ focus on job creation, and 52 percent on positive long-term impact.