Trust means believing that management will do what it says it can do. Trust means supporting management, through thick and thin, over the long-term. Trust means that your stakeholders understand your strategies, what it`s going to take to implement them, and knowing that the organization is heading in the right direction.
But will increasing the trust bond with your stakeholders also support a stock valuation? We would stipulate that it does. A wide variety of factors impact stock valuation - beginning with the financial performance of the company - and important among them is the belief on the part of investors, and analysts, that management knows where to take the company and is executing on that vision consistently and reliably.
Trust matters, then, because without it there is little but mutual self-interest binding organization and stakeholder. Invest in building trust and that converts into something more: for the organization, the confidence that it has the full support of its stakeholders; for stakeholders, the belief that the organization has its best interests in mind and is enriching their investment.