The rigour-relevance balance for engaged scholarship: New frame and new agenda for trust research and beyond

With great excitement, I introduce the Journal of Trust Research (JTR). JTR is positioned as a high-impact source journal for both scholars and practitioners with the critical insights into the unique features and roles of trust within and across disciplines. For the purpose of introducing and positioning JTR, my editorial has five parts. First, I present the key information about JTR. Second, I discuss the major challenges to scholarship in general and rigourrelevance balance in particular. Third, I propose a new frame of thinking capable of addressing those key challenges. Fourth, I introduce the four articles in the inaugural issue of JTR. Finally, I discuss the agenda for future trust research. The central theme of this editorial is that we must commit to engaged scholarship through the rigourrelevance balance, which is made possible by adopting a new frame of thinking with its holistic, dynamic and duality tenets in academic research in general and trust research in particular.