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Trust as a human value and driver of organizational behavior in innovative companies across international rankings

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: This study aims to discuss the role of human values and trust-based mechanisms in integrating innovation and knowledge to improve organizational behavior (OB) and societal behavior. The study is based on a descriptive analysis of data from international country rankings (e.g., Legatum Prosperity Index) and company rankings (e.g., Boston Consulting Group) regarding the dynamics of values and culture. Based on the rankings and literature, we conduct a cross-analysis between OB vs. societal behavior to deduce the key human values that support continuous innovation in firms/countries. The study brings some novelties regarding systemic trust and tacit knowledge as key values explaining the application of Ba, SECI, etc., and continuous innovation in the 50 most innovative companies (BCG). Among such elements of novelty are the identification of a fifth type of tacit knowledge (TK) at the firm level, the distribution of five types of TK over the range given by fuzzy logic, the use of the "semiotic triangular pyramid" for defining knowledge and the proposal of an extension of the "the SECI spiral" argued by Nonaka and Takeuchi. Therefore, the proposed study brings a new normative- conceptual framework of pragmatic interest for any company/ country aiming to improve performance by considering human values.

Source: Scientific Reports

DOI: 10.1038/s41598-026-60206-5