THE CATALYST EFFECT: THE IMPACT OF TRANSACTIVE MEMORY SYSTEM STRUCTURE ON TEAM PERFORMANCE

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Mell, Julija N.; van Knippenberg, Daan; van Ginkel, Wendy P.
• 署名单位: Erasmus University Rotterdam; Erasmus University Rotterdam - Excl Erasmus MC
• 刊物名称: ACADEMY OF MANAGEMENT JOURNAL
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0001-4273
• DOI: 10.5465/amj.2012.0589
• 发表日期: 2014
• 页码: 1154-1173
• 关键词: GROUP DECISION-MAKING; INFORMATION ELABORATION; UNSHARED INFORMATION; KNOWLEDGE NETWORKS; GROUP COGNITION; diversity; Mediation; COMMUNICATION; expertise; benefits

摘要

Research on transactive memory systems (TMSs) implicitly assumes that metaknowledge (i.e., the knowledge of who knows what) is uniformly distributed among team members. Relaxing this assumption results in a more realistic notion of team cognition in which the distribution of metaknowledge can take different forms. Demonstrating the importance of this conceptual shift, we compare teams in which metaknowledge is concentrated within one central member (a centralized TMS structure) with teams in which metaknowledge is distributed evenly among the members (a decentralized TMS structure). We predict that centralized metaknowledge can give teams a performance advantage over decentralized metaknowledge, because centralized metaknowledge can allow the central member to function as a catalyst for information exchange and integration. We propose this catalyst effect to be contingent on the extent to which the distribution of task information among members poses high coordination demands to effectively integrate members' knowledge. In a laboratory team decision-making experiment (n = 112), we found the predicted interaction effect between TMS structure and the distribution of task information. Furthermore, the experiment supported our hypotheses about the mediating role of the transactive retrieval process and the ensuing team information elaboration.