Trust governance based on active interpersonal strategy

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to investigate the new concept of trust governance and how to design trust‐related governance mechanisms. Design/methodology/approach - The paper defines trust governance based on the nature of governance, and proposes the micro design approach from the perspective of active interpersonal strategy. Based on a literature review, trust governance emerges as a new organizing principle which needs to be taken into account when considering the fast development of knowledge. Active interpersonal strategy is highlighted as a way to build trust and several governance mechanisms are proposed. Findings - This paper concludes that trust governance is an important and new research field, and is also a necessary route of organizational promotion from human control to self‐control. Interpersonal threat control strategy could understand and drop a hint about others'cognitive risk. Active trust could excite trust by virtue of active express friendship. Such active interpersonal strategies enable the manager to explore the situational confidence from the micro individual level, and facilitate the micro‐mechanism design. Originality/value - The paper shows that trust governance could initiate the innovation performance of individuals, and promote interpersonal trust development and evolution.