People trust docs, teachers

Star: PETALING JAYA: Who do Malaysians trust most? Politicians, business leaders, teachers or doctors?
In a survey of 2,074 respondents conducted by the Business Ethics Institute of Malaysia (BEIM), doctors came up first and teachers second. Politicians were at the bottom of the 15-category list.
Sixty-two percent of the respondents felt that politicians did not tell the truth, while believers numbered only 11%. The rest were uncertain.
The reading for business leaders was not good either, as they were just one rung above politicians.
“Interestingly, there appears to be some identical findings to the British (MORI) survey in the rankings,” said BEIM chairman Dr Zainal Abidin Abdul Majid yesterday.
BEIM conducted the survey to gauge the perception of trust among Malaysians in the integrity of several professions, and also to compare findings with a similar research conducted in Britain by MORI, an opinion research organisation.
Dr Zainal said the MORI survey was done here for the first time after the research director of the Institute of Business Ethics UK mooted the idea during a lecture visit to Malaysia in July 2004.
“In Britain it has been done annually since 1983,” he said, adding that it cost BEIM RM20,000 to conduct the survey.
“The respondents were from 28 organisations, including four government departments,” he said, adding that the University of Nottingham Malaysia and Binary University College helped to collate the results.
“The survey findings is a wake-up call to various parties. These are indicators that our level of integrity is very low and drastic changes have to be made,” he said, adding that the business community must realise that with a high level of integrity the country would be able to attract better investors.
He said it warranted a further investigation into the reasons for Malaysians’ lack of trust in the business leadership.
“The findings should be of concern to the business community, which has been rated second lowest with a score of 16% of trust.”
The integrity of business leaders is obviously at stake, which would affect the public’s and investors’ trust in the way we do business, he said.
Marked differences in the scores between the BEIM and the MORI surveys appear for trade union officials, police and civil servants, with the indication of trust higher in Britain.
It is worth noting that 30% of the respondents believe that the local press tell the truth, while in Britain it is 24%.
Overall, one can conclude that Malaysians are generally less trusting than the Brits.
Meanwhile, International Islamic University Dean of Research Prof Datuk Dr Syed Arabi Idid noted that the survey was very localised, as the majority of the respondents were from universities and some from a shopping mall in Selangor.
“It’s not a nationwide survey, but what’s interesting is that the survey has a resemblance to the MORI findings,” he said.