Looking Beyond the Team: Team Member Behaviors After a Transactive Memory Intervention

Abstract

Awareness of available expertise in groups directly influences the group performance. Extensive empirical research on transactive memory systems has demonstrated this to be true. While there have been numerous research studies of this phenomenon, there is far less known about how interventions designed to increase transactive memory in natural continuing groups may have impacts beyond the groups. This paper addresses that gap. I provide an overview of transactive memory research and report on a team intervention designed around transactive memory systems theory. Qualitative data was collected through group interviews with participants in this intervention. The results of these interviews indicate that the most significant impacts of within-team transactive memory system awareness are in how team members change their interactions across the team boundary. I define the concept of situated expertise to describe the combination of knowledge awareness, help-seeking actions, and social network awareness needed to convert accurate team transactive memory systems into sustained system-level high performance.