Emotional intelligence as the departure of the path to corporate governance

Purpose – Corporate governance is built on the responsibility of members towards other stakeholders inside and outside the organization. Through the testing of hypotheses on the interconnections between corporate governance and its precursors, this research aims to substantiate that emotional intelligence (EI) is the first layer of bricks, trust the second layer, and corporate social responsibility (CSR) the third layer of the entire architecture of corporate governance. Design/methodology/approach – A total of 382 responses in completed form returned from self‐administered structured questionnaires relayed to 640 middle level managers underwent an analysis based on structural equation modeling (SEM). Findings – Emotional intelligence, as the data divulges, is a rich network of social synapses among members for knowledge‐based or identity‐based trust to grow in their souls, which can activate ethical CSR deeds as levers for corporate governance. Originality/value – The journey to test research hypotheses has built, layer by layer, an EI‐based model of corporate governance in which a high concentration of emotional intelligence among members in the organization catalyzes knowledge‐based or identity‐based trust, without which CSR initiatives to cultivate ethical values cannot be implemented successfully to optimize corporate governance effectiveness in Vietnamese organizations.