Only politicians rank as less trustworthy than managers of large companies following waves of scandals over inflated corporate earnings and executive pay, a new global survey shows.

Doctors are by far the most trusted professionals in Europe and the U.S., outstripping even the clergy, except in orthodox Christian nations Romania and Russia. Lawyers and journalists also were considered more trustworthy than business leaders in the poll of nearly 22,000 people in 21 countries.

Geographically, managers in the U.S. are regarded slightly higher than those in Western Europe, according to the survey conducted during September and October 2003 by GfK Ad Hoc Research Worldwide, Brussels, for The Wall Street Journal Europe. Russia, Germany and Poland were considerably less trusting of managers than the average. Conversely, residents in Denmark, Sweden and Finland trusted their business executives more than in any other country surveyed -- and generally held all of the professions listed in higher regard.

But even those nations with a higher regard for managers still ranked doctors much more trustworthy. Combining the results of all who were surveyed, 80% said they trust doctors, while 33% trust managers and only 16% trust politicians.

Journalists were rated as only slightly more trustworthy than managers, with a 36% trust rating. Journalists in Belgium, Portugal, Poland and Romania were most trusted, while U.K. residents had among the lowest regard for journalists, with 17% expressing trust.

In the U.S. more so than Europe, accounting scandals involving publicly traded companies, such as the collapse of Enron Corp., dragged down trust in corporate executives. Eight out of 10 Americans said the accounting scandals decreased their trust in managers, compared with fewer than half in Western Europe. Overall, one in three polled had either never heard of the scandals or had no opinion about them.

Hard Lessons

In Western Europe, Germans stood out as most distrustful of their corporate leaders, with only 18% expressing trust. "German top managers would fail their exam if the public were to judge," said GfK General Manager Mark Hofmans.

Shervin Setareh, senior consultant for corporate governance research firm Deminor Rating, Brussels, blamed Germany's increase in unemployment and hard lessons people learned from investing in the stock market in recent years. German investors were enticed to the market -- often for the first time -- by large state public stock offerings such as Deutsche Telekom AG and Deutsche Post, and many had their fingers burned when share prices collapsed after 2000.

Distrust deepened, Mr. Setareh said, when investors saw top executives still taking home big paychecks. "People were very angry and, because the trade unions have a strong presence on the supervisory boards of companies, this issue became very visible," he said.

Germans' skepticism of managers was matched only in Russia and Poland. The arrest of Mikhail Khodorokovsky, former CEO of Russian oil giant OAO Yukos, occurred after the survey, but the highly oligarchic structure of Russian industry and wealth of many business leaders have long bred contempt in that country.

The same is true in Poland, where many Eastern Europeans are jealous of senior managers' higher salaries. Because many companies in the region are still state owned, "people are not happy that these large salaries are coming out of their taxes," said Piotr Madalinski, senior researcher at GfK in Poland.

At the other end of the scale, Scandinavians trust their managers more. In Denmark, 64% expressed trust -- the highest rating of any country surveyed. Claus Silferberg, director of the Danish Shareholders Association, credits high ethical standards in Danish business, and the fact that the nation has mainly of small to midsize enterprises. "The business community in Denmark is just 5,000 to 10,000 people," said Mr. Silferberg, "so even if you don't actually know everyone, you probably know them indirectly, so you don't want to cheat on them."

Local Loyalty

When it came to the question of whether U.S. companies are better managed than European companies, participants were loyal to their own regions, but U.S. managers tended to get higher marks. Almost two out of three Americans polled said European firms are managed worse than U.S. companies. About 40% of Europeans in the survey said the quality of management is similar and 25% said European managers are better.

A similar trend was found in another question in the survey: "Which stock exchanges would you invest in if you found yourself with an extra €1,000?"

A third of people in Western Europe said they would put all the money in European companies, while almost half of Americans said they would use the windfall to buy stocks in U.S. companies. U.K. investors were among the most open-minded about investing, with 42% of those polled saying they would put half the money in European companies and half in companies from other regions.

Financial planner Richard Broughton of St. James Place, London, said when he suggests clients diversify their investments beyond the U.K., "no one resists that idea and, indeed, some actually make the suggestion themselves." He said people are open to investing in the U.S., the Far East and Europe but still consider U.K. equities as the least-risky option.

In Central Europe, where there is no long history of stock ownership and many companies are still state-owned, nearly 40% of respondents said they didn't know where they would invest €1,000.