Bjorn Jensen, Purdue UniversityDecember 16, 2015

Transactive Memory and Transactive Memory Systems

- A Background

RESEARCH CENTER

Open Digital Innovation

CONTENT

▪ What is transactive memory?

▪ How is it applied?

▪ Relevance for transparency? Virtual communities?

AGENDA

“Few people rely exclusively on their own

memories” (Wegner, 1987)

Overall: It is a psychological hypothesis and concept envisioned by Wegner and his co-authors in 1985. it is widely used today in management, psychology, IS, and communication to examine its effects on e.g. virtual group/team and organizational performance.

Transactive memory is the shared store of knowledge.

A transactive memory system includes memory stored in each individual, the interactions between memory within the individuals, as well as the processes that update this memory, combined with meta-memory containing information regarding the different teammates’ domains of expertise (Wegner, 1985)

It is a mechanism through which groups collectively encode, store, and retrieve knowledge (Wegner, et al., 1985)

Simply put: when Albert and I spend a lot of time around each other and working together at RCODI, we create a shared store of knowledge between us. In essence, one member of the couple could store information within their partner and then recall that information by asking their partner about it.

In virtual settings, it refers to how we as individuals can rely upon external aids such as artifacts and collaborators (see Ren & Argote, 2011), also referred to as metaknowledge.

Transactive memory is not the same as TMS, but is a component of TMS (Ren & Argote, 2011, p. 192).

TMS is something we develop collectively – antecedents are important

WHAT IS TRANSACTIVE MEMORY AND TRANSACTIVE MEMORY SYSTEMS?

THEORY

HOW IS TMS APPLIED?

THEORY

Ren & Argote (2011), adapted from Mathieu et al. (2008), “Input-Mediators-Output” framework

Existing measures of TMS

Antecedents

Because there is limited research on the factors affecting the opportunity to develop a TMS further (Ren & Argote, 2011).

Because different types of knowledge such as declarative (know-what, know who) might decay at a faster rate than procedural knowledge or know-how (Cohen & Bacdayan, 1994) – and this could be a visibility problem.

Components

There are various measures of TMS and no common agreement on these measures except for the ones developed by Lewis (2003).

The closest items relevant to transparency are “expertise location” and “bring expertise to bear” which try to explain the location of knowledge and if it is easy to locate expertise and know who possesses it.

Outcomes

TMSs develop over time – making certain types of knowledge visible may enhance creativity and/or performance over time and thus generate a better TMS (Only one study investigating this in team settings was found by Ren & Argote, 2011).

Existing literature is “house divided” on whether visibility of information is beneficial for KMS. It may make us more efficient (Leonardi, 2014) and at the same time less efficient as people may not share correct information or the whole truth (Leonardi & Treem, 2012)

Groups with well-developed transactive memory systems have knowledge of members’ expertise, they are in a better position to envision how members’ expertise can be combined in new ways to create new products and services (innovations) than teams with less developed transactive memory systems.

WHY ARE TMS’ RELEVANT FOR TRANSPARENCY?

THEORY

There are few studies that address this (see Ren & Argote, 2011) – it is a conceptual underpinning in some studies (for one of those see Leonardi, 2014)

Few studies emphasize the individual and organizational level, and are mostly focused on direct communication between members – can be expanded.

There are few established measurements of TMS effects, and these are all team-level analyses, even in virtual spheres (see Yoo & Kanawattanachai, 2001)

Because we develop TMS collectively, but lack the physical interpersonal aspect in online collaboration.

Research on ESNS’ for virtual collaboration have used TMS but as a subset only. There are plenty of possibilities for using TMS in KMS research in virtual collaboration (see Fulk & Yuan, 2013)

TMS’ effects on team innovation is both positive and negative (Peltokorpi & Hasu, 2014), but what about the collective? Individual?

WHY IS IT RELEVANT FOR RESEARCH IN VIRTUAL COLLABORATION?

THEORY

Ren & Argote (2011)

Cohen, M.D., & Bacdayan, P. (1994). Organizational routines are stored as procedural memory: Evidence from a laboratory study. Organization Science, 5, 554–568.

Fulk, J., & Yuan, Y. C. (2013). Location, Motivation, and Social Capitalization via Enterprise Social Networking. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 19(1), 20-37. doi:10.1111/jcc4.12033

Leonardi, P. M. (2014). Social Media, Knowledge Sharing, and Innovation: Toward a Theory of Communication Visibility. Information Systems Research, 25(4), 796-816. doi:10.1287/isre.2014.0536

Leonardi, P. M., & Treem, J. W. (2012). Knowledge management technology as a stage for strategic self-presentation: Implications for knowledge sharing in organizations. Information and Organization, 22(1), 37-59. doi:10.1016/j.infoandorg.2011.10.003

Lewis, K. (2003). Measuring transactive memory systems in the field: Scale development and validation. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88(4), 587–604.

Peltokorpi, V., & Hasu, M. (2014). Transactive memory systems and team innovation. Team Performance Management: An International Journal, 20(5/6), 262-272. doi:10.1108/tpm-04-2014-0031

Ren, Y., & Argote, L. (2011). Transactive Memory Systems 1985–2010: An Integrative Framework of Key Dimensions, Antecedents, and Consequences. The Academy of Management Annals, 5(1), 189-229. doi:10.1080/19416520.2011.590300

Wegner, D. M. (1995). A computer network model of human transactive memory. Social Cognition 13(3): 319–339. doi:10.1521/soco.1995.13.3.319.

Wegner, D. M., Giuliano, T., & Hertel, P. (1985). Cognitive interdependence in close relationships. In W. J. Ickes (Ed.), Compatible and incompatible relationships (pp. 253-276). New York: Springer-Verlag.

Yoo, Y., & Kanawattanachai, P. (2001). DEVELOPMENTS OF TRANSACTIVE MEMORY SYSTEMS AND COLLECTIVE MIND IN VIRTUAL TEAMS. The International Journal of Organizational Analysis, 9(2), pp. 187 - 208

REFERENCES

TMS