Over two decades have passed since Wegner and his colleagues (1985) introduced the concept of transactive memory system to denote a collective cognitive system that dyads use to encode, store, and retrieve knowledge (Wegner, Giuiliano, & Hertel, 1985; Wegner, 1986). The concept of transactive memory system relates to team cognition management.
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building better team understanding, communication exchange, and team effectiveness (Cooke et al., 2007, Farad & Sproul, 2000, Yoo & Kanawattanachai, 2001). The transactive memory system refers to a group memory that consists of team members’ individual transactive memory, the knowledge about individual areas of expertise within a group, and the knowledge about the capabilities of other team members, “who knows what?” in the team (Wegner, 1986). Transactive memory enables team members to tap the expertise and experience of other members as needed, for example:
Marcus does not know how to write quantitative requirements, but he knows that his team member Katy does. On the other hand, Katy does not know how to set up a mockup for a prototype, but she knows that Marcus does. As they work together on a joint task that requires both to write quantitative requirements and set-up a prototype mockup, both Markus and Katy can access and use necessary knowledge that exist between each other.
Building on others transactive memory, individuals gain knowledge that becomes beneficial to the entire team process. Over-time the individually held concepts develop into a
transactive memory system (TMS; Lewis, 2003).
The concept of TMS is similar to, but varies distinctively from related concepts like team mental models (Klimoski & Mohammed, 1994), shared-task-, or cross understanding (He, Butler, & King, 2007; Huber & Lewis, 2010). Even though these concepts are common in capturing cognitive representations shared among members. TMS differs from those in that it includes knowledge about who knows what instead of team goals, strategies, beliefs, or preferences, and instead supports cognitively the labor for learning, remembering and communicating knowledge (Wegner, 1986). Teams with a highly developed TMS thus display knowledge differentiation in which different members specialize in learning, remembering, and sharing diverse knowledge (e.g., Lewis, 2003). One requisite for TMS development, however, is task interdependence and some degree of cognitive
interdependence, as team members rely on each other’s knowledge to complete mission goals (Hollingshead, 1998, 2001). This reliance can be more or less explicitly observed in team communication depending on the circumstances of the presence or readiness state of plans or agreements (e.g., Wittenbaum, 1998; Wittenbaum & Strasser, 1998). The working of TMS or development of TMS can directly be attributed to cognitive interdependence (Brandon & Hollingshead, 2004) and communication (Hollingshead & David, 2003). Virtual teams may also use the approach whenever newly applied contexts of emergent groups must respond to disasters, new or planned, or to manage knowledge based integration into developing virtual
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teams (e.g., Alavi & Tiwana, 2002). In the following sections the TMS structure and process, cognitive behavioral indicators of a TMS, and a framework of TMS in teams represent the benefits as the models mature using the TMS and other modeling tools.
2.3.1 Transactive Memory System Structure and Process
The TMS concept consists of two interrelated components, the structure, and the process (Lewis, Belliveau, Herndon, & Keller, 2007). First, the TMS structure begins to develop in form of representations once team members have an understanding about one another’s expertise (Hollingshead, 2001). These become more developed as members increase their task-related knowledge from internal or external team knowledge sources to refine their understanding of who knows what (Wegner, 1986). According to Wegner (1986), after the initial TMS processes and structures are in place, members draw their initial
understanding of ‘who knows what’ to allocate new information encountered by the team members and to query others about information they are presumed to have. During these interactions, Wegner (1986) postulates team members’ may discover new information about the breath or depth of members’ knowledge that causes them to revise or update their
understanding of ‘who knows what’. In turn, new understandings about the distribution of knowledge contained in the TMS structure affects what members choose to learn, remember, and communicate (Wegner, 1986).
Wegner, Raymond, and Erber (1991) identified three progressive learning methods to gain almost instant knowledge about someone’s capabilities. These learning methods are: 1) stereotyping (e.g., inferences from roles, age, or sex; Hollingshead and Fraidin, 2003), 2) self-disclosure (e.g., of traits, past activities, skills, and preferences), or 3) meta-knowledge that is developed based on facts about other’s access to the information source (e.g., who accessed the source; Wegner et al., 1991). TMS processes, which occur as team members’ allocate, update, and retrieve information relevant to the team and task defines the second component of TMS (Wegner, 1986). Based on the concept by Wegner (1986) these processes use data collection to coordinate learning and for retrieval of member’s knowledge so that the knowledge can be made available. TMS structure and processes function synergistically within a team’s TMS, with the TMS structure providing the initial guidance for transactive memory processing letting both cognitive and performance benefits emerge (Lewis et al. 2007).
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2.3.2 Factors Affecting Transactive Memory System in Teams
Changes in tasks, memberships, communication channels, team dynamics, or
environments factors, all contribute to the working TMS, and its impact on team performance (Ren & Argote, 2011). Ren and Argote (2011) summarized these factors by displaying
antecedents of TMS that were studied in preceding research (see Figure 3); key components of TMS as well as indicator and measures; consequences of TMS that included team learning, creativity, members satisfaction, and most commonly team performance; and lastly moderate factors between TMS and TMS outcomes. Given that team members of most virtual teams or dynamic organizations flow in and out of teams rather frequently, transactive memory might deteriorate at the team level compared to traditional organizations (Moreland & Argote, 2003). Lewis and colleagues (2007) inferred a promising intervention to support team members to cope with membership turnover, by giving teams time to reflect on their own specialization and the specialization of their team members. Results of such an intervention increased team members’ adaptation response by adjusting their specialization to the addition of a newcomer, improving the efficiency of TMS processes and overall performance (Lewis et al., 2007).
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2.3.3 Transactive Memory System and Communication in Virtual Teams
Communication is linked to be one of the most significant factors in the development of TMS. Authors Hollingshead and Brandon (2003) for example, inferred that
communications assist in moving team members from a stereotypical perception of others’ expertise, to precise and accurate ascriptions. Several other studies have examined the effect of communication frequency on the development of TMS. For instance, Lewis (2004) found appositive relation between communication frequency during the planning phase and TMS emergence in a study of MBA consulting teams. In addition, He, Butler and King (2007) demonstrated the number of face-to-face meetings and communication via telephones to have a significant positive effect on awareness of the location of expertise. Kanawattanachai and Yo (2007) collected three waves of data on transactive memory development. They found that task-oriented communication led to expertise location and trust in the initial stages of team operation. The effects disappeared, however, in later weeks of team operations, which suggests that the effects of communication on TMS development is fundamental in early stages of operation, rather than in later team stages (Ren & Argote, 2011).
Prior research on TMS development focused on no face-to-face communication such as in virtual teams, and it supports the effectiveness of early TMS development (e.g., Yoo & Kanawattanachai, 2001). According to past studies on transactive memory and face-to-face environments, teams develop transactive memory systems by using relevant available information, including surface characteristics, assignments of the task, past experiences, and informal communication among team members (Lewis, 2004; Yoo & Kanawattanachai, 2001). However, due to the lack of such cues in virtual teams, early in the team development process, teams must communicate effectively to exchange expertise related information for TMS development (Yoo & Kanawattanachai, 2001). For instance, in the study by
Kanawattanachai and Yoo (2007), teams were culturally diverse and solely relied upon computer-mediated communication to finish their task effectively. The researchers found positive effects of computer-mediated communication on team members’ belief and trust about others’ specialized knowledge, but only in teams with early TMS development. Hence, TMS development is observable in computer-mediated communication, as communication is used to update and retrieve valuable TMS behavioral information (Richter & Lechner, 2009).
On the other hand, teams, in early team stages, in which TMS in communications are sparse, might lack an understanding or a highly developed TMS. As earlier research suggests, some virtual teams perform well even with limited team communication in place, that is,
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when a highly developed TMS is already in place and needs to only be updating in newly evolving situations (e.g., Wegner, 1986). Hence, virtual teams with a highly developed TMS intentionally minimize their volume of communication to collaborate faster, without
negatively affecting team effectiveness (Kanawattanachai & Yoo, 2001). Group discussion might provide members with an opportunity to discuss and demonstrate their expertise, which in turn allows for greater precision in determining who is an expert in a particular knowledge domain and provides means for faster TMS development (Ren & Argote, 2011). Van Dijk and Broekens (2010) implied that the faster virtual teams could create their TMS when operating in a time pressured environment, the faster successful collaboration occurs. Events of virtual teams’ show that despite the lack of face-to-face communication, communication through technology contributes to TMS development (Kanawattanachai & Yoo, 2001). Due to the effectiveness of communication in the development of TMS in early team development stages, TMS cognitive behaviors may be observable in team communication.
2.3.4 Transactive Memory System - Cognitive Behavioral Indicators
The TMS theory, based on the theoretical grounds, and TMS behavior of individual team members may be observable in communication. TMS characteristics support behavior to facilitate quick and coordinated access to specialized knowledge of other team members. This allows a greater amount of task-relevant expertise for teams to apply (e.g., Lewis et al., 2007). Based on previous research, TMS defines behaviors of specialization, credibility, and coordination (Liang, Moreland, & Argote, 1995; Moreland & Myaskovsky, 2000). When teams develop TMS, they start to specialize and differentiate uniquely held knowledge
(Lewis, 2003). According to Lewis (2003), this uniquely held knowledge may be absent, if no communication about respective expertise occurs or can be developed redundantly. Hence, team members’ have to be certain of the reliability of knowledge (i.e., credibility) shared. Coordination behaviors depend on members to have a good understanding of who has what knowledge and how it can be intertwined or combined (Cannon-Bowers, Salas, & Converse, 1993). This understanding evolves during the development of specialized knowledge and credibility that lets coordination processes run efficiently (Lewis, 2003). Teams need to combine their respective knowledge quickly and easily for efficient coordination activity (Lewis, 2003).
Therefore, the virtual and supportive memory characteristics of TMS can manifest themselves in team member behaviors of specialization, credibility, and coordination (e.g., Liang et al., 1995; Moreland & Myaskovsky, 2000). Assessing TMS in form of cognitive
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behaviors in highly dynamic situations could provide insight about the TMS development process. However, to date research is scarce and no methodical procedures to locating TMS cognitive behavior are of existence. Given the lack of theoretical indicators or empirical evidence as to which types of TMS, and how the TMS cognitive behaviors occur in team communication, this research explores the nature of TMS cognitive behaviors in team communication. This research further extends the literature by addressing the following questions:
Research Question 1.3: Which types of TMS cognitive behaviors do teams communicate?
Research Question 1.4: Does the occurrence of individual TMS cognitive behaviors differ?
Hypothesis 1.2: Different TMS cognitive behaviors are displayed in teams in regards to high versus low team performance.