The interplay between cognitive- and affective conflict and cognition- and affect-based trust in influencing decision outcomes

Research on strategic decision-making has focused on both conflict and trust as important process variables that affect decision outcomes. Taking information processing perspective, the present study investigates the interplay between two types of conflict and two types of trust and argues that cognitive conflict and cognition-based trust are far more important than the affective conflict and affect-based trust in strategic decision-making teams. The perceptions of trustworthiness based on the competence of the executives enhance decision quality and commitment whereas the perceptions of trustworthiness based on relationships do not have any affect on outcomes. Multi-informant data from 109 hospitals revealed that cognition-based trust is a moderator in the relationship between conflict and outcomes whereas affect-based trust does not moderate the relationship. The implications of the divergence roles of both conflict and trust are discussed.