Top management team transactive memory, information gathering, and perceptual accuracy

Abstract

Information gathering is routinely prescribed as a means of increasing the perceptual accuracy of a top management team (TMT), and consequently, of the performance of the firm managed by that team. Some studies, however, find that more information gathering results in better performance for some organizations but not for others, possibly because of differences in TMT information processing. This study explores this issue by examining the relations among TMT information processing structure (indicated by TMT transactive memory), information gathering, and perceptual accuracy. The results indicate that while transactive memory at time one does not influence the extent of information gathering between time one and time two, information gathering between time one and time two increases perceptual accuracy at time two for firms that have little variation in prior performance.