Trust and control – a symbiotic relationship?

Traditional approaches to management which incorporate top‐down systems of control do not readily accommodate the need, imposed by a changing business environment, for more flexible methods of harnessing the knowledge and commitment of employees. In this situation, trust has been recognized as an important factor for organizational success but any relaxation of control may be constrained by the demands of accountability to internal and external stakeholders. In this paper, we illustrate the complexity of the relationship between trust and control in the context of corporate governance by examining the internal audit technique of control self‐assessment. We argue that the dependence of control processes on trust has been insufficiently explored and that neglecting to consider the reciprocal nature of trust relationships from an employee perspective may hamper the effectiveness of control systems designed to enhance accountability.