Transactive Memory Development Research Articles

The application of transactive memory in the learning organization and the role of credibility

Studies have shown that transactive memory plays a significant role in how learning occurs within organizations. While many studies have looked at what influences the growth of transactive memory, not much research has been done on how the thought processes of people working in groups are formed. This area of study examines the importance of how knowledge is organized in people's minds at work for the growth of transactive memory and how this process is affected by individual characteristics. Therefore, this study aims to fill this gap by looking at how trust and skill, known as credibility dimensions, affect the growth of transactive memory. For this purpose, information was gathered from 239 people working at a paint and coating company in Saudi Arabia. The results indicate that both trust and skill significantly influence the development of transactive memory.

Team Training for Dynamic Cross-Functional Teams in Aviation: Behavioral, Cognitive, and Performance Outcomes.

This study evaluates the effectiveness of a training program designed to improve cross-functional coordination in airline operations. Teamwork across professional specializations is essential for safe and efficient airline operations, but aviation education primarily emphasizes positional knowledge and skill. Although crew resource management training is commonly used to provide some degree of teamwork training, it is generally focused on specific specializations, and little training is provided in coordination across specializations. The current study describes and evaluates a multifaceted training program designed to enhance teamwork and team performance of cross-functional teams within a simulated airline flight operations center. The training included a variety of components: orientation training, position-specific declarative knowledge training, position-specific procedural knowledge training, a series of high-fidelity team simulations, and a series of after-action reviews. Following training, participants demonstrated more effective teamwork, development of transactive memory, and more effective team performance. Multifaceted team training that incorporates positional training and team interaction in complex realistic situations and followed by after-action reviews can facilitate teamwork and team performance. Team training programs, such as the one described here, have potential to improve the training of aviation professionals. These techniques can be applied to other contexts where multidisciplinary teams and multiteam systems work to perform highly interdependent activities.

Bringing Specialties Together: The Power of Intra-Professional Teams.

Bringing Specialties Together: The Power of Intra-Professional Teams.

Phase-specific relationships between team learning processes and transactive memory development

With this study we seek to contribute to the research on the emergence of transactive memory, that is, the knowledge of “who knows what”, as part of the structural component of transactive memory systems (TMSs). Based on our theoretical model of team learning and transactive memory development, we analyse the relationships among different team learning behaviours and transactive memory during various phases of team development. We use a longitudinal design with three points of measurement at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end of a semester, to examine real student project teams over their full life cycle. The results support our presumptions of phase-specific influences of team learning behaviours on transactive memory development. This shows that knowledge-based processes (storage and retrieval) play a more important role during early stages of project-based teamwork, followed by a shift to a higher relevance of communication-based processes (reflection and co-construction) in later stages. Implications for further research and team management phenomena are discussed.

The role of transactive memory in the formation of organizational routines

This study addresses how individuals combine their diverse skills during the process of forming organizational routines. Our explanation centers on the development of transactive memory, which forms during the initial performances of a routine, as actors search for (and subsequently remember) other actors with the capabilities needed to complete a routine. We present an agent-based model to analyze how the distribution and availability of individual capabilities influence the set of actors involved in performing routines, initially and over time. The model shows that even when the pattern of actions stays the same, the pattern of actors involved in performing an organizational routine can change continuously. Variations in the efficiency of routine formation that are inexplicable in terms of action sequences may be readily explained when we examine actor sequences. Transactive memory contributes to the theory of organizational routines by serving as a bridge between individuals’ skills and collective capabilities.

Ineffective Transactive Memory Development in Multi-cultural Work Teams: Its Socio-emotional Consequences

Ineffective Transactive Memory Development in Multi-cultural Work Teams: Its Socio-emotional Consequences

An Integrative Model of the Role of Trust in Transactive Memory Development

This article extends transactive memory (TM) theory as it is currently conceptualized. We propose a new integrative model of the relationship between transactive memory system (TMS) development and trust. By using the TM encoding cycle, the model proposes that trust acts as an antecedent of TMSs and that wider perceptions of team members’ trustworthiness (benevolence and integrity) also affect the development and maintenance of effective TMSs in teams. Our conceptualization considers the effect of trust on both the knowledge structure and the transactive processes involved in TMSs. From our analysis, we provide a number of propositions and hypotheses relating to different stages of TMS development to be pursued by future research. Finally, we consider the managerial implications of our model.

"The effects of expected group longevity and expected task difficulty on learning and recall: Implications for the development of transactive memory": Correction to Baumann & Bonner (2011).

"The effects of expected group longevity and expected task difficulty on learning and recall: Implications for the development of transactive memory": Correction to Baumann & Bonner (2011).

The effects of expected group longevity and expected task difficulty on learning and recall: Implications for the development of transactive memory.

The effects of expected group longevity and expected task difficulty on learning and recall: Implications for the development of transactive memory.

The Effects of Team-Skills Training on Transactive Memory and Performance

The existence of effective transactive memory systems in teams has been found to enhance task performance. Methods of developing transactive memory are therefore an important focus of research. This study aimed to explore one such method, the use of a generic team-skills training program to develop transactive memory and subsequent task performance. Sixteen three-member teams were all trained to complete a complex collaborative task, prior to which half the teams ( n = 8) completed a team-skills training program. Results confirmed that those teams that had been trained to develop a range of team skills such as problem-solving, interpersonal relationships, goal setting, and role allocation evidenced significantly higher team skill, transactive memory, and performance than those that were not trained in such skills. Results are discussed with reference to the wider transactive memory literature and the mechanisms through which team-skills training could facilitate the more rapid development of transactive memory.

Transactive Memory Systems in Organizations: Matching Tasks, Expertise, and People

Transactive memory is the shared division of cognitive labor with respect to the encoding, storage, retrieval, and communication of information from different knowledge domains, which often develops in groups and can lead to greater efficiency and effectiveness. Although discussions of transactive memory theory suggest that components of the theory are dynamic, research tends to treat transactive memory as evolving linearly, using static measures rather than assessing development over time. In response, we offer a model emphasizing both linear and cyclical aspects of transactive memory development in work groups, and we propose that task is a major influence on developmental processes. We introduce task representation and the task-expertise-person (TEP) unit as basic constructs involved in transactive memory development, and we provide a dynamic model of how TEP units are constructed, evaluated, and utilized. Regarding observable changes over time, we propose that transactive memory systems can vary in terms of accuracy (the degree to which group members' perceptions about others' task-related expertise are accurate), sharedness (the degree to which members have a shared representation of the transactive memory system), and validation (the degree to which group members participate in the transactive memory system). Convergence is the optimal state of transactive memory systems and reflects high levels of accuracy, sharedness, and validation.

Cognitive interdependence and convergent expectations in transactive memory.

A laboratory experiment investigated the processes that underlie the development of transactive memory structures--the organizing schemes that connect knowledge held by individuals to knowledge held by others (D. M. Wegner, T. Guiliano, & P. T. Hertel, 1985). The design was a 2 x 4 factorial that controlled expectations about the partner's knowledge (similar or different from the participant's) and cognitive interdependence, the degree to which participants' outcomes depended on whether they recalled the same or different information as their partner (defined by 4 incentives). Transactive memory was most differentiated when individuals had different expertise and incentives to remember different information and most integrated when individuals had similar expertise and incentives to remember the same information. These findings may help to explain the impact of previous experience and relationships on the development of transactive memory.

Investigating the Encoding Process of Transactive Memory Development in Group Training

Participants were trained to perform an assembling type of task either individually or in 3-person groups. A week later, the same participants, regardless of their training conditions, performed the task in 3-person groups. This study investigated the encoding process of transactive memory development in groups whose members were trained together and that were later found to have developed effective transactive memory systems. Transactive memory is a group memory system that details the expertise possessed by group members along with an awareness of who knows what within the group. It was found that in groups with high transactive memory, (a) group members declared domains of expertise during earlier rather than later periods of group interaction, and (b) the frequency with which members evaluated others’ expertise and competence increased over time. Further analyses of sequential patterns of conversations during group training and practice suggested that transactive encoding may include small cycles of questioning/ no expertise/declaring expertise/evaluating/coordinating.