Trust Malaysia 2014 Release

PRESS RELEASE

Edelman Public Relations Worldwide Sdn Bhd (116568A)
45-9, The Boulevard, Mid Valley City, Lingkaran Syed Putra, 59200 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Tel +603 2287-8689 Fax +603 2287-0234 www.edelman.com
A Daniel J Edelman Company

Malaysia Results of the 2014 Edelman Trust Barometer Highlights Dramatic
Rise for Trust In Business
Third edition of Trust study in Malaysia shows steady trust in NGOs and Media,
lower trust in Government.

Kuala Lumpur, 13 February 2014: Business in Malaysia saw a significant jump in trust with
a nine-point rise to 72% this year, rebounding from a two-point drop from 2013. This was
mainly due to strong trust in big business and publicly-traded companies, pointing that a
commitment to shareholder value and high standards of governance are held in high regard
by Malaysians.

A large majority (80%) of respondents in Malaysia said they trusted big business, up by
three percentage points from a year before, while 77% said publicly-traded companies are
trustworthy. This sentiment is shared across Asia Pacific with 73% and 74%, respectively,
indicating these types of business are most trusted.

“This result comes on the back of Malaysia moving up six notches to sixth place in the World
Bank’s Ease of Doing Business 2013 report. The implementation of strict reporting
standards, integrity pacts, open tenders and independent oversight is seen to have
contributed significantly to business earning higher trust from the Malaysian public,” said
Raymond Siva, Managing Director of Edelman Malaysia at the launch of the Malaysian
Edition of the 2014 Edelman Trust Barometer.

The result was further strengthened by the World Bank’s vote of confidence for the country’s
banking sector, reporting that it is poised for further growth in 2014 with strong prospects
and profitability. It was no surprise then to see that 78% of Malaysians hold a high level of
trust in banks in the country according to the Trust Barometer.

Technology companies continue to enjoy high levels of trust with an increase of five
percentage points to 90%, while consumer health and pharmaceutical companies saw trust
gains of four and three percentage points to 79% and 77% respectively, possibly due to
stringent regulation and consumer protection policies.

2

However, while trust in business saw a marked increase, trust in its leaders was lacklustre.
Respondents gave clear indication of the attributes they expected from CEOs to earn trust,
top of which were:

- Communicating clearly and transparently
- Engaging employees regularly to discuss the state of the business
- Tells the truth regardless of how complex or unpopular it is

“These attributes were only separated by 1% each, indicating that transparency and honesty
in top executives are paramount trust building attributes,” said Siva.

Lower trust in Government seen globally
The big news this year was the collapse of trust in government. In 17 out of the 27 countries
surveyed, trust in government declined over the last year.

In Malaysia, however, following an emotionally-charged 13th General Election last year, trust
in government only dropped six points to 54% after rising double digits last year, faring better
than regional peers, such as Singapore (-7%) and Hong Kong (-18%).

“As Malaysia forges ahead with its ambition of transforming to a high-income economy by
2020, the government has shown that it is willing to make tough decisions such as subsidy
cuts and introduction of the Goods and Services Tax in 2015 to achieve this goal. However,
the perceived lack of public engagement and clearly articulated explanation on a variety of
issues, such as the less than sterling government spending report card highlighted by the
Auditor General, security intrusion in Sabah and action on corruption, may have contributed
to trust in government declining from the previous year,” explains Siva.

“That said, trust in the Malaysian government still remains in positive territory with over half
of respondents saying they trusted the institution in question, making Malaysia one of only
10 countries to do so,” he added. The percentage of respondents saying they trust the
government ‘a great deal’ also saw a slight increase from 21% to 23% this year.

3

In an interesting twist, although the respondents placed higher trust in Business over
Government, 33% say government’s most important role is to protect consumers from
irresponsible business practices. 20% of respondents said they wanted the government to
build infrastructure that promotes and facilitates business while a further 20% wanted the
government to ensure free market access as well as open competition within industries.

While respondents expected a company to deliver on product quality and have high ethics,
there was a significant gap in how they thought companies were performing on these
attributes, with 18 points separating perceived importance to performance. Significantly,
respondents viewed a company’s product and services, level of engagement and integrity as
priority areas for trust building.

For three consecutive years, trust in Non-Governmental Organisations remain strong and
leads against businesses, media and government, albeit with a one percentage point drop in
trust from a year prior to 75%. This data reinforces the view that championing a purpose
remains a top priority for the majority of Malaysians.

Similarly, technical experts and academics remained at the top of the list of people most
trusted by Malaysians for the third consecutive year. ‘A person like yourself’ dropped 12
points from last year as a credible info source. CEOs are credible spokespeople to just over
half of Malaysians while only one-third of respondents trust a government spokesperson.

Trust in media was stable, sliding just 1 point from 2013 to 59%. However, the more
interesting news is that the percentage of people who said they trust media “a great deal”
rose from 15% to 20% from a year ago –great news for media practitioners.

Overall, the 2014 Edelman Trust Barometer Malaysia continued to strengthen the fact that
Malaysians are generally trusting, showing a one-point total increase in the Trust Index from
a year before to 65% this year.

A majority of Malaysians feel that business and industry leaders need to play a more active
role in business policy discussions that result in a shared future benefit with the community.

4

A significant majority (84%) of global respondents were very clear in demanding a more
inclusive and cooperative business-government-civil society relationship to earn trust. It is
abundantly clear that the clarion call for leaders is to participate at ground-level discussions
to understand stakeholders and advocate a clearly articulated strategy based on feedback.
Measurable results must then be taken, assessed and finally acted upon to deliver on the
dual objectives of shareholder and community value. The CEO must become the Chief
Engagement Officer.

For more downloadable media materials– www.releasd.com/1256
# # #
About the Edelman Trust Barometer
The 2014 Edelman Trust Barometer is the firm’s 14
th
annual trust and credibility survey. The survey
was produced by research firm Edelman Berland and consisted of 20-minute online interviews
conducted October 16, 2013 – November 29, 2013. The 2014 Edelman Trust Barometer online
survey sampled 27,000 general population respondents with an oversample of 6,000 informed publics
ages 25-64 across 27 countries. All informed publics met the following criteria: college-educated;
household income in the top quartile for their age in their country; read or watch business/news media
at least several times a week; follow public policy issues in the news at least several times a week.
For more information, visit: http://www.edelman.com/insights/intellectual-property/trust-2014/.
About Edelman

Edelman is the world’s largest public relations firm, with 67 offices and more than 4,800 employees
worldwide, as well as affiliates in more than 30 cities. Edelman was named Advertising Age’s top-
ranked PR firm of the decade in 2009 and one of its “A-List Agencies” in both 2010 and 2011;
Adweek’s “2011 PR Agency of the Year;” PRWeek’s “2011 Large PR Agency of the Year;” and The
Holmes Report’s “2013 Global Agency of the Year” and its 2012 “Digital Agency of the Year.”
Edelman was named one of the “Best Places to Work” by Advertising Age in 2010 and 2012 and
among Glassdoor’s top ten “Best Places to Work” in 2011 and 2012. Edelman owns specialty firms
Edelman Berland (research), Blue (advertising), BioScience Communications (medical
communications), and agencies Edelman Significa (Brazil), and Pegasus (China). Visit
http://www.edelman.com for more information.

For enquiries, please contact:

Sahana Prabhakar
[email protected]
(+603) 2287-8689 ext. 212




Ravind Valiapan
[email protected]
(+603) 2287-8689 ext. 218