The Effect of Conflict Type and Organizational Crisis on Perceived Strategic Decision Effectiveness

Abstract

The current study aims to investigate the effects of cognitive and affective conflict on two important attributes of perceived strategic decision effectiveness: perceived strategic decision quality and commitment. Specifically, we identify cognitive conflict as a nonlinear phenomenon and test whether the presence of an organizational crisis alters the relationship between conflict types (cognitive and affective) and perceived decision quality and commitment. Our analysis of data from 264 executives comprising a total of 64 strategic decision-making (SDM) teams indicates that the effect of cognitive conflict on perceived strategic decision outcomes is, in fact, nonlinear. Furthermore, the findings of the study also revealed that organizational crisis is a significant moderator of the relationship between both level of cognitive and affective conflict and perceived strategic decision quality. These results help clarify the mixed findings about the effects of cognitive conflict within SDM teams and provide some insight on how SDM teams can maximize conflict in the decision-making process, without incurring its costs. More important, our findings indicate that high crisis contexts tend to lessen the influence of both cognitive and affective conflict on perceived strategic decision quality, suggesting that intrateam conflict dynamics among top management teams to some extent could be superseded by the urgent need for prompt decision making and collaboration. Implications for research and practice are discussed.