HOW COMMUNICATION IMPACTS ON THE DEVELOPMENT
OF TRANSACTIVE MEMORY SYSTEM IN TASK-TEAMS?
Yonglin Yang, Yanping Liu and Fangcheng Tang
School of Economics & Management, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing 100044, P.R. China
Keywords: Transactive memory system, Communication, Team.
Abstract: This study examined the effect of different communication modalities on the development of transactive
memory systems (TMSs) in task-teams. We propose that development of TMSs to meet different expertise
and knowledge demands is dependent on communication context and modes. Findings suggest that in task-
teams, informal communication context, face-to-face (FTF) and non-face-to-face (non-FTF) communication
modes are positively related to the development of TMS. The results also show that the effect of
communication context and modes on TMS development is moderated by prior familiarity among team
members. Furthermore, TMS is positively related to team performance. Finally, theoretical and managerial
implications are discussed.
1 INTRODUCTION
Most of the existing empirical research in the
laboratory demonstrates that TMS has powerful
effects for task performance and expertise utilization
(Hollingshead, 1998); (Liang et al., 1995);
(Moreland, 1999); (Moreland & Myaskovsky,
2000). For example, Lewis (2004) argues teams that
develop TMSs are more likely to fully utilize
members’ expertise and realize the value of
embedded team knowledge. Recent field studies also
show that TMSs help ongoing organizational teams
perform well, suggesting that TMS may provide
benefits across a general set of team tasks (Austin,
2003; Faraj & Sproull, 2000).
While communication was viewed as a valuable
tool for the development TMS (Hollingshead &
Brandon, 2003), other researchers argued that
communication never facilitated the development of
TMS (Akgün et al., 2005). These two inconsistent
views make the role of communication process in
the TMS development unclear. In addition, although
researchers have also studied the conditions that
favor the TMSs development, emphasizing the close
relationships and familiarity among group members
(Wegner, 1987) but have failed to analyze what roles
familiarity plays in TMS. It is also not clear from the
literature how the extent of familiarity among group
members influence the relationships between
communication and TMS development.
In this study, we focus on the communication
processes that influence TMSs development. We
believe that by affecting members’ expectations and
interactions, communication processes play a key
role in developing the structure of a TMS. Then, in a
project, combining and integrating members’
expertise become key functions of a TMS, but the
extent to which a TMS facilitates knowledge
utilization and integration depends on the nature and
frequency of group communication processes.
2 COMMUNICATION
PROCESSES AND TMS
DEVELOPMENT
To tap the role of communication in TMS
development, we introduce the extent of familiarity
as a moderator of the relationships between
communication and TMS development. We propose
a research model to explain how communication
context, communication modes, familiarity, TMS
development and group performance might be
related in workgroup. Figure 1 summarizes the
relationship among these five factors.
451
Yang Y., Liu Y. and Tang F..
HOW COMMUNICATION IMPACTS ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF TRANSACTIVE MEMORY SYSTEM IN TASK-TEAMS?.
DOI: 10.5220/0003595704510454
In Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems (KMKSSC-2011), pages 451-454
ISBN: 978-989-8425-54-6
Copyright
c
 2011 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)

Figure 1: Research model.
2.1 Communication Context
Past research demonstrated that providing feedback
about individual skills and opportunities to
communicate created an effective TMS.
The
communications involved both formal and informal
intrateam interaction (Lynn, 1998). An
organization’s communication channels develop
around these interactions within the organization
that are critical to its task.
Generally, formal
communication was exchange via formal meetings
and written documents. Informal communication
involved exchange via hallway interactions and
after-work socialization. So we can gain the
following propositions:
Proposition 1a: The frequency of formal
communication will be positively related to TMS
development.
Proposition 1b: The frequency of informal
communication will be positively related to TMS
development.
2.2 Communication Mode
Communication processes that aid in transactive
retrieval are important for creating a TMS that
facilitates knowledge utilization and integration
during the project. Furthermore, the nature of this
communication may be critical to create a TMS that
helps achieve high performance. Organizational
groups have a variety of communication modes from
which to choose, including face-to-face meetings,
electronic mail communication, and telephone
conversations. According to Griffith and his
colleagues (Griffith & Neale, 2001); (Griffith et al.,
2003), most groups in organizations use a
combination of these, choosing to emphasize one
mode over another depending on the needs of the
task and group. Face-to-face meetings have the
advantage of being the most information-rich
communication medium (Daft & Lengel, 1986)
because they convey both verbal and nonverbal
information (through body language, eye contact,
facial expressions). Information richness is
potentially important for transactive retrieval
processes because members may have encoded
information about others’ expertise in nonverbal
communication that occurred earlier in the project.
Research by Hollingshead suggests the relationships
between communication medium, TMS, and
performance are complex. Results of her studies
imply that a group’s choice between communicating
face-to-face or through a less information-rich
medium should depend on the extent to which a
TMS has already developed.
Groups that have failed
to develop a functional TMS during the project and
communicate predominately through means other
than face to face should be least likely to develop a
TMS capable of facilitating knowledge retrieval,
utilization, and integration. Therefore, we present
the following proposition:
Proposition2a: The frequency of face-to-face
communication will be positively related to TMS
development.
Proposition2b: The frequency of non-face-to-face
communication will be positively related to TMS
development.
3 THE MODERATING EFFECT
OF PRIOR FAMILIARITY
As the antecedent of TMS development, team
member familiarity refers to the degree of prior
interaction between of group members (Harrison et
al., 2003). Familiar members are more likely to have
had a variety of experiences together that give them
a more accurate view on the content, credibility, and
depth of a members’ expertise. So interpersonal
knowledge will be intense in highly familiar teams
and prior experience forms a range of beliefs and
these affected the sharing of information. Gruenfeld
et al. (1996) suggest that familiar members are also
more likely to offer, discuss, and consider unique
information, being more likely than strangers to trust
the source of potentially conflicting information.
Also, their study demonstrated that groups
composed of familiar members with different task-
critical information shared more unique information
and performed better than did teams of strangers
with similarly diverse information. This suggests
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that member familiarity will reduce ambiguity about
how expertise is distributed among members and
facilitate sharing of diverse expertise-both of which
will help elaborate the structure of member-expertise
associations.
Since team member familiarity reduce
uncertainty and anxiety about social acceptance
during the project, and promotes interpersonal
attraction and cohesiveness, while team members
spend little or no time in acquiring members’
expertise and knowledge. In contrast, if members’
initial expertise is overlapping rather than
distributed, member familiarity could delay the
emergence of a TMS. Members with strong ties to
one another are more likely to have redundant
information (Granovetter, 1973) that could be
overemphasized during task discussions (Stasser &
Stewart, 1992). If a group’s initial expertise is
overlapping, high levels of familiarity could make it
even more difficult to distinguish members’ unique
contributions. This could mean delays in defining
who is responsible for what information and
resolving ambiguities about how members’
knowledge fits together. Although familiarity should
help teams with initially distributed knowledge
develop a TMS, high levels of familiarity in teams
with initially overlapping expertise should cause a
TMS to emerge more slowly. Thus, we propose:
Proposition 3a: The effect of formal communication
on TMS development is significantly higher when
familiarity is high rather than low.
Proposition 3b: The effect of informal
communication on TMS development is
significantly higher when familiarity is high rather
than low.
Proposition 3c: The effect of FTF communication on
TMS development is significantly higher when
familiarity is high rather than low.
Proposition 3d: The effect of non-FTF
communication on TMS development is
significantly higher when familiarity is high rather
than low.
4 TMS DEVELOPMENT AND
TEAM PERFORMANCE
The positive influence of a TMS on group
performance is well established in group behavior
literature. Yoo and Kanawattanachai (2001) found
that a TMS has a positive impact on team
performance as shown by profit, ROA, ROE, stock
price, and market share. Dividing up knowledge
responsibilities allows members to focus on
developing deep expertise in their individual
domains, while still maintaining ready access to
task-relevant knowledge possessed by others. When
members are clear about who is responsible for
knowing and remembering what expertise, they can
spend less time searching for necessary information
during task processing. Thus, well-developed TMS
helps group members share and integrate their
expertise quickly and efficiently, helping
organizational groups achieve timely delivery of
their products and services within resource
constraints. TMS development also ensures that a
greater amount of specialized knowledge is brought
to bear on group tasks, resulting in higher-quality
products and services that meet clients’ needs. So
TMS development during the task-performing
should result in the group’s high level of task
completion.
Proposition 4: The extent to which TMS has
developed will be positively related to the group’s
level of task completion.
5 CONCLUSIONS
This study attempts to examine the effect of
communication context and modes on development
of TMS. We expected that communication processes
would affect the development of TMSs. Thus,
communication processes are divided into two parts:
communication context (formal and informal) and
communication modes or types (face-to-face, such
as formal meetings, non-face-to-face, such as
telephone and email). But this study only presents
some propositions because of limitation of length.
Future research should focus on empirical study
based on datasets.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We would like to thank National Science Fund of
China (NSFC) under contract No.71072028 and the
Fundamental Research Funds for the Central
University under contract No. 2011JBM034 for its
support.
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