In the academic literature published from the second half of the 1990s, trust is mainly perceived as a transactional concept: the action of one party leads to either trust or mistrust by the other party. The basic moral principle underlying this approach is perceived as utilitarian: optimizing the (dis)advantages for the actors involved. Although this understanding has not changed over time, the social and economic climate has changed. This has revealed a new trust issue in socio-economic systems, such as insurance industries, which emerged during the 2007 financial crisis and has persisted since that time. What seems to be missing from a transactional understanding of trust is its meaningful interpretation for multiple parties involved. Developing theory with a normative approach to trust attempts to address this, but yet lacks the basic moral principles to underpin this. Contemporary philosopher MacIntyre, with his work “After virtue”, illustrates a teleological moral foundation in order to understand society and work towards its improvement. Our study institutionalizes theory encompassing a normative trust approach within MacIntyre’s teleological moral foundation. Providing both a conceptual elaboration and an empirical illustration, our study suggests the concept of ‘intrinsic trust’ that we have constructed on the basis of MacIntyre, which is at odds with the generally accepted concept of ‘utilitarian trust’.