Effect of transactive memory systems on team performance mediated by knowledge transfer

Task interdependence within teams is critical towards the team's performance. However, there has not been strong support in examining the effect of task interdependence on the relationship between Transactive Memory Systems (TMS) quality and team performance. Using a survey, this research examines the potential effects of the moderating and mediating effects between task interdependence towards team performance. A partial support was found in the mediating effect between task interdependence and team performance. However, a significant negative effect was obtained in the moderating effect between TMS quality and team performance. Both of these findings provide empirical evidence of the possible effects of the task interdependence between TMS quality and team performance.

PurposeThis paper aims to provide a comprehensive academic literature review on the relationship between knowledge management, knowledge transfer and organizational performance in a specific subset of the creative industry, i.e. arts and crafts organizations. Furthermore, this paper analyzes how knowledge management and transfer within arts and crafts organizations help increase performance and enhance the value of the activity of the so-called “knowledge workers” (i.e. craftsmen), who are the real knowledge owners in the process of value creation.Design/methodology/approachThe literature review follows the model suggested by Vom Brocke et al. (2009). The review follows a five-phase approach so as to be systematic, transparent and replicable. Academic contributions published over two periods are taken into consideration. The first period covers the years 1990-2000, when the concepts of creative industry and knowledge-based economy were developed. The second period covers the years 2000-2016, when scholars started to investigate how to effectively transfer knowledge (very often in the form of “tacit knowledge”) retained by master craftsmen in arts and crafts organizations and the critical role played by craftsmen in the performance of such organizations.FindingsThree main issues have emerged: how arts and crafts organizations manage and transfer knowledge internally; the effects of these activities on organizational performance; and the prominent role of craftsmen. The literature review shows how in arts and crafts organizations there is a considerable link between the concepts of “performance" and "tacit knowledge", even though addressing such link is somehow hard to realize, for several reasons discussed in the paper. The measurement of performance in arts and crafts organizations has become an area of academic investigation only when both the role of knowledge management and transfer and the role of knowledge workers (i.e., craftsmen) have become evident for obtaining a competitive advantage.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper has been an attempt to organize existing studies on knowledge management and transfer and to investigate the relationship existing between knowledge and performance in arts and crafts organizations. Nevertheless, the relationship between knowledge and performance is yet to be explored, as well as the development of techniques for measuring arts and crafts organizations’ performance effectively. The present contribution calls for a systematic reflection on how the transfer of traditional craftsmen’s skills impacts organizational performances in the long run. The definition and implementation of new performance evaluations criteria tailored to enhance the tacit knowledge of craftsmen as a real source of differentiation and competitive advantage for the arts and crafts organizations is somehow still missing.Practical implicationsBy pursuing its objectives, the present contribution aims to represent a step toward enabling arts and crafts organizations to play a vital role in the modern society in a more structured way. This would help to build awareness of the potential of arts and crafts organizations for promoting economic growth, proposing a value proposition different from the one dictated by the globalization and by the triumph of product standardization and mass production.Originality/valueAnalyzing the knowledge management and transfer within arts and crafts organizations with a historical perspective, it appears that the recognition in academic literature of the centrality of knowledge management and transfer within arts and crafts organizations is only recent (i.e. from 2011 onward). Indeed, for approximately 20 years (i.e. 1990-2010), knowledge has been constantly related to technological paradigms and standardized results, with very little research and debate on craftsmanship and the role of craftsmen. Nevertheless, the research shows that over the years, the focus on knowledge in arts and crafts organizations and knowledge transfer has become progressively more detailed and precise: some authors have studied the role of craftsmen in the knowledge economy according to a historical perspective, while some others have analyzed different types of knowledge more thoroughly. For example, Sveiby (1997, 1996), analyzing the concept of "knowing talent" and "tradition", outlines a more prominent role of craftsmen in the knowledge economy and explain how, in sectors with a strong traditional background, the transfer of tacit knowledge is a meaningful challenge for many organizations.

Purpose– The purpose of this study is to empirically investigate impact of transformational leadership on team performance and the effects of support for innovation and psychological empowerment in this association. Over the past many decades, teams have become an increasingly popular way of organizing and coordinating work. This trend creates new challenges for leaders, as they are expected to motivate individual employees and to improve team performance simultaneously.Design/methodology/approach– This study proposes a conceptual framework for understanding motivation and support extended to individual employees which would influence team performance. The conceptual framework includes psychological empowerment and support for innovation as mediating variables in the effect of transformational leadership on team performance. The study also validates the proposed conceptual framework using a second-order confirmatory factor analysis technique, namely, partial least squares-structural equations modeling, with the data collected from 182 followers from 10 service organizations in the UAE.Findings– The findings suggest that transformational leadership has significant positive impact on team performance and, on the contrary, transactional leadership has significant negative effect on team performance. Two dimensions of psychological empowerment such as meaning and self-determination have partial mediation effect in the relationship between transformational leadership and team performance.Originality/value– This study contributes to the research that identifies team mechanisms influenced by transformational leadership that can affect team success and performance, particularly in the context of UAE-based organizations. Managerial implications and future research areas are further discussed.

The authors of this study examined the influence of transactive memory systems (TMSs) on team performance and team cohesion, as mediated by team psychological safety. Using a sample of 178 undergraduate students representing 27 service-management teams in a real-life restaurant setting with real-world consequences, TMS exhibited significant positive relationship with team performance and team cohesion. Team psychological safety was found to mediate the relationship between TMS and team outcomes. Based on the findings, theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

PurposeTasks in today’s global marketplace are becoming increasingly reliant on the work of teams. As creativity and innovation are frequently required for organizational success, work teams are becoming more and more prominent within all types of organizations. With the rise of organizational teams, the purpose of this paper is to develop appropriate tools to measure how well these teams work together and how well they perform required tasks.Design/methodology/approachThis paper outlines a measure of teamwork, a transactive memory system (TMS), and proposes new methods for using TMSs to measure team structures, processes, and performance. These new methods include dispersion models and social network analysis.FindingsDispersion models and social network analysis hold promise for the future evaluation of TMS and other team constructs.Originality/valueThis paper provides a summary of two novel approaches to the measurement of TMS and other team constructs.

PurposeDespite the recognized importance of transactive memory systems (TMS) for firm performance, this relationship remains misconstrued for entrepreneurial firms. Some researchers argue that entrepreneurial firms benefit from effective knowledge management systems, whereas others contend that such systems may prove expensive for resource-scarce entrepreneurial firms. Accordingly, the purpose of this paper is to explore this relationship in the context of Indian entrepreneurial firms. Furthermore, the authors argue that relationship conflict among organizational members impacts the TMS–performance link for entrepreneurial firms.Design/methodology/approachData were collected from 127 entrepreneurial hotels in the Uttarakhand state of India and analyzed using multiple linear regression.FindingsThe findings of this study establish a positive relationship between TMS and firm performance for entrepreneurial firms. Also, it is found that TMS becomes more nuanced and beneficial in the presence of relationship conflict between organizational sub-units and is a unique finding that can be potentially helpful to entrepreneurs bestowed with the task of knowledge management in their organizations.Practical implicationsThis study offers at least two insights to entrepreneurs. First, establishing TMS – i.e. managing knowledge in such a way that specialization units are created, credibility is established among the knowledge units, and there is scope for sufficient communication – leads to enhanced performance in entrepreneurial organizations. Second, as the level of relationship conflict within the entrepreneurial firm increases, it becomes all the more crucial to emphasize TMS.Originality/valueAlthough researchers in the literature of knowledge management have emphasized a lot on its performance outcomes, relatively little research effort has been placed on understanding this link for entrepreneurial firms. The current study filled this void in the literature and offered crucial implications for entrepreneurial firms operating in dynamic environments such as hotels. Additionally, the data collected from a relatively unexplored context of Indian hospitality industry offer a valuable addition to the entrepreneurship literature.

As organizational structure tends to be more team-oriented, effective communication and knowledge sharing among team members which is necessary for the completion of team tasks become more important. Team transactive memory system is an information processing system that can deal with the distributed knowledge of the team. Previous research suggested that transactive memory system has great influence on team knowledge sharing, accuracy of decision-making, team learning effectiveness, and even team performance. This paper summarized the influence of transactive memory system on team effectiveness and analyzed the variables which will moderate the effects. Implications of the study of transactive memory system were also discussed.

This dissertation investigated how personality traits and team criteria influence team performance in real construction projects. Though personality influence on team performance has been significantly investigated in other business sectors, the literature revealed that the construction industry lacks investigations regarding personality influencing team performance. The existing literature revealed that the Big Five Factors (BFF) was the most popular assessment tool for personality. Thus, this dissertation adopted the 50-Item Personality questionnaire developed by Goldberg, which consited of extraversion, aggreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience. The literature also revealed several common team criteria to evaluate team performance: team member satisfaction, shared values/goals/culture, commitment/responsibility, communication/information sharing, and trust/respect. This investigation aimed to find what personality traits influence team performance in construction projects and determine the accuracy of the personality traits and team criteria conditions. The qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) revealed that personality traits influence team performance only in combination with team criteria. It also revealed that agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness to experiance are the most influential traits in the sampled construction projects. QCA also revealed team criteria conditions were the most influential and that trust and respect must be present in construction teams to achieve high team performance. This dissertation provided valuable findings to the construction industry by demonstrating that personality traits and team criteria are influence team performance. The practical implication of the results is that construction stakeholders must value trust/respect and use personality, especially agreeableness, to access and maintain trust/respect levels during the project's construction phase.

Although a large body of human capital research supports the critical role of human capital resource (HCR) in unit performance, very little research has paid attention to where HCR originates and how HCR influences team performance. Drawing on human capital, faultline, and multilevel theories, we build on two forms of a team’s KSAOs that capture the level and configuration of the KSAOs (i.e., the mean level of KSAOs and KSAO-based faultlines). We examine how both the mean level of KSAOs and KSAO-based faultlines influence HCR, how team processes (i.e., communication, transactive memory system, and team positive affect) affect these relationships, and how HCR impacts team performance. Using a sample of 268 undergraduate students in 66 teams, we find that the mean level of KSAOs and KSAO-based faultlines significantly interact to influence HCR. The conceptual arguments and empirical findings developed in this study contribute to the human capital literature by building knowledge about a team’s KSAOs, HCR, team processes, and team performance.

Over two decades have passed since Wegner and his co-authors published the groundbreaking paper on transactive memory systems (TMS) in 1985. The concept attracted the interest of management, psychology, and communication scholars who have employed a variety of methods to examine the phenomenon. In this paper, we review 76 papers that examined transactive memory systems and summarize the findings in an integrative framework to show the antecedents and consequences of TMS. Our review also reveals important issues in the literature related to the measurement of TMS, its multidimensional nature, extending TMS from the team level to the organizational level, and the potential role of TMS in explaining the benefits of experience in existing organizations and new entrepreneurial ventures. We conclude by calling for future research to examine the dynamic evolution of TMS, TMS in virtual teams, TMS in entrepreneurial ventures, and TMS at the organizational level facilitated with information technologies.

This study examines the relationship between software project team characteristics and team performance by focusing on two questions: whether or not different team characteristics in software project team affect project performance, and whether or not different types of team motivation lead to different level of influence to the relationship between team characteristics and performance? In this study, we argue that team motivation should be considered as a moderate between the relationship of team characteristics and performance. Different kind and level of team motivation can result in different project performance outcome. We examine the interaction effects between team characteristics and team motivation before their final impact to the performance. The results show that the relationship between project team characteristics and performance can be interfered with team motivation. Management should pay more attention to team motivation within project teams so that a better project performance could be achieved.

Empowering teams through social network ties

ABSTRACTIn recent years, both quality management practices (QMP) and knowledge transfer (KT) have been studied extensively from inter-organisational and intra-organisational perspectives. However, to the best of our knowledge, the interaction between QMP and KT in a supply chain and their joint effects on organisational performance have not been addressed fully. The purpose of this paper is to provide insights for improving performance by mapping the relationship between supply chain quality management practices (SCQMP) and KT. A survey of 157 Chinese manufacturing firms is used to test a conceptual model that proposes relationship among SCQMP, KT and organisational performance (including operational performance and innovation performance). Structural equation modelling reveals that internal QMP have significantly positive effect on internal KT, while QMP at supply chain level have highly positive effect on cross-organisational KT. Furthermore, the results show that both internal KT and cross-organisational KT can promote operational and innovation performance, although the influence from internal KT is much more significant than cross-organisational KT for Chinese firms. The findings contribute to theory as well as practice by increasing understanding of how to improve the operational and innovation performance through enhancing SCQMP and KT.

The latest buzzwords in organizational change and development literature are “knowledge management” and “knowledge transfer”, which proponents claim are successful ways of improving and enhancing employees’ performance. Moreover, trust and the ability of employees to work in an autonomous manner are often cited as being essential for the effectiveness of self‐managed teams. Little however, is known on the effect of interpersonal trust on knowledge management (acquisition) of team members, and the consequences for team performance. A survey of 49 self‐managing teams was carried out to investigate the relationship between the dimensions of interpersonal trust, knowledge acquisition, and team performance. Overall, findings support that most interpersonal trust dimensions are positively related to the variables of knowledge acquisition. The results also showed that the effects of interpersonal trust on team performance to a large extent are mediated by the intervening variables of knowledge acquisition.

While prior research has focused on differences in entrepreneurial orientation between organizations, we direct attention to differences in entrepreneurial orientation within organizations. We propose that individual members in entrepreneurial teams may differ in their dispositions to act in entrepreneurial ways, that is, in their individual entrepreneurial orientation (iEO) and that these differences have meaningful implications for team performance. Drawing upon research in team diversity and entrepreneurial orientation, we argue that the three iEO diversity dimensions—proactiveness, risk taking, and innovativeness diversity—affect team outcomes in different ways, although they belong to the same diversity type and even belong to a common superordinate construct. Empirical data gathered in 104 dyadic entrepreneurial teams supports our theory: Diversity in proactiveness within a team impairs team performance. Risk-taking diversity also harms team performance by heightening relationship conflict. However, innovativeness diversity facilitates team performance. The present study contributes to two streams of research, namely, entrepreneurial team research and research on entrepreneurial orientation and is of practical significance to entrepreneurial team formation and performance.