Economic enterprises face two, related, managerial problems: effective management of the enterprise's activities, and communicating to outsiders that the enterprise is in fact well-run. These problems were especially difficult in the credit cooperative movement that grew up in Germany in the...

Research on 'trust' now forms a prominent part of the research agenda in history and the social sciences. Although this research has generated useful insights, the idea of trust has been used so widely and loosely that it risks creating more confusion than clarity. This essay argues that to the...