DCU Business School Faculty Insight: The Volkswagen Emissions Scandal – A fatal trust breach?

Prof. Finian Buckley a trust scholar at DCU Business School says the future for the Volkswagen brand is going to be very difficult.

Trust in a brand is built on three pillars, Competence, Integrity or Honesty, and Concern for customer. The reported rigging of emissions reading breaches at least 2 of these 3 pillars.

Unfortunately for VW, trust repair from integrity and concern for customer breaches are the most difficult to repair. Our research indicates that it is a slow costly process with no guarantee of success. They need to take several key steps to begin that process:

 Even with these in place will customers ever trust VW again?

Professor Finian Buckley is a Professor of Organisational Psychology in DCU Business School. For more on his research in the area of trust, please click here.