An empirical investigation into the influence of predictable and timely communication on cognition-based trust

The objective of this study, conducted at a large financial services organisation in Australia, was to examine the effect of peer timeliness and peer communication predictability on cognition-based trust in virtual workers. The results indicated that neither timeliness nor predictability explained a notable amount of variance in the level of cognition-based trust in virtual workers. Peer timeliness explained only a small amount of the variance in the level cognition-based trust in virtual workers and peer communication predictability explained even less. The results did suggest however, that peer communication predictability was a greater predictor of cognition-based trust in virtual teams when the respondent displays a high level of communication predictability. Peer communication predictability has less influence on the level of cognition-based trust when the respondent displays low communication predictability. The findings also implied that cognition-based trust may have a different set of antecedents depending on characteristics of the trustor (such as gender).