Communications and Trust: Information or Identity? The Case of the Chilean Wine Sector towards the Chinese Market

Abstract

This article seeks to contribute to the theoretical-practical discussion on the role of corporate communications in building trust in global commerce. For this purpose, the case study of the Chilean wine industry and its communication towards the Chinese market is used, and it is analyzed from two central aspects of literature: knowledge and identity. Through the creation of a matrix based on semiotics and elaborated by the authors, six corporate websites of the industry are examined in exploratory form. From this case study, elements that contribute to the theoretical discussion are provided, for the case of the trust and communication relationship, as well as to the methodological discussion with the construction of a preliminary matrix that relieves the attributes of the concept of trust. It is concluded that there are cognitive elements in the construction of trust between organizations, but it is also about a moral and identity discourse and that there is little representation of the listener, which weakens this last aspect.