No man is an island — that proverbial expression rings especially true now, when the health and safety of each individual depends so acutely on the decisions and behaviours of others. In the time of Covid-19, it becomes more apparent than ever that what makes or breaks a community is the result of individual actions.

Humans love to eat meat. From 50 million metric tons in 1950, annual meat production has jumped over five times to 275 million metric tons in 2015. That translates to the slaughter annually of some 300 million cattle, 1.5 billion pigs, and a staggering 50 billion chickens. The discarded chicken bones, scientists says, will form a fossil layer under the Earth’s surface that will mark the Anthropocene – the geological age dominated by human activity.

Much of that can be attributed to the rapid urbanisation of the 20th century, explains Sir Nigel Thrift.

Death is a part

Trust is an important building block for organisational success, whether it is trust between managers and their subordinates or a brand and its customers. In this podcast, Associate Professor Tan Hwee Hoon from SMU’s Lee Kong Chian School of Business shares her insights into the research which examines how factors of trustworthiness – that is, ability, benevolence and integrity – vary in terms of importance in trust-building across countries; and how one’s general willingness to trust, also termed ‘propensity to trust’, affects relationship-building in different countries.

SMU PDLS: Mr Jack Dorsey | Special Dialogue on 20 Mar 2019