Trust and Managerial Problem Solving

TLDR

The study develops a trust model linking information flow, influence, and control, and tests its impact on managerial problem‑solving effectiveness. Managers were assigned to high‑trust or low‑trust conditions and given identical policy information, with briefings framing expected trust levels. High‑trust groups outperformed low‑trust groups in goal clarification, information accuracy, solution search breadth, and implementation commitment, confirming trust as a key determinant of managerial problem‑solving effectiveness.

Abstract

This paper presents a model of trust and its interaction with information flow, influence, and control, and reports on an experiment based on the model to test several hypotheses about problem-solving effectiveness. The subjects were managers and the independent variable was the individual manager's initial level of trust. Groups of business executives were given identical factual information about a difficult manufacturing-marketing policy problem; half the groups were briefed to expect trusting behavior, the other half to expect untrusting behavior. There were highly significant differences in effectiveness between the high-trust groups and the low-trust groups in the clarification of goals, the reality of information exchanged, the scope of search for solutions, and the commitment of managers to implement solutions. The findings indicate that shared trust or lack of trust apparently are a significant determinant of managerial problem-solving efectiveness.1