Team Cognition: Development and Evolution in Software Project Teams

The Dynamics of Team Learning: Harmony and Rhythm in Teamwork Arrangements for Innovation

Innovation teams must navigate inherent tensions between different learning activities to produce high levels of performance. Yet, we know little about how teams combine these activities-notably reflexive, experimental, vicarious, and contextual learning-most effectively over time. In this article, we integrate research on teamwork episodes with insights from music theory to develop a new theoretical perspective on team dynamics, which explains how team activities can produce harmony, dissonance, or rhythm in teamwork arrangements that lead to either positive or negative effects on overall performance. We first tested our theory in a field study using longitudinal data from 102 innovation teams at a Fortune Global 500 company; then, we replicated and elaborated our theory in a study of 61 MBA project teams at an elite North American university. Results show that some learning activities can occur within the same teamwork episode to have harmonious positive effects on team performance, while other activities combine to have dissonant negative effects when occurring in the same episode. We argue that dissonant activities must be spread across teamwork episodes to help teams achieve a positive rhythm of team learning over time. Our findings contribute to theory on team dynamics, team learning, and ambidexterity.

Information systems adoption and knowledge performance: An absorptive capacity perspective

As strategic assets for organizations, information systems (IS) have been adopted to enhance organizational knowledge performance. Based on the absorptive capacity perspective, we investigated intertwined relationships among IS adoption, organizational capabilities, IS-enabled absorptive capacity, and organizational knowledge performance. We empirically examined our model with survey data from 417 IS employees of 21 different state governments in the United States. We find that: (1) IS adoption does not directly generate IS-enabled absorptive capacity; (2) organizational capabilities positively affect IS-enabled absorptive capacity; (3) synergies arising from complementarity between IS adoption and organizational capabilities have a positive impact on IS-enabled absorptive capacity; and (4) IS-enabled absorptive capacity significantly drives manager and employee knowledge performance. This research enriches the understanding of the relationships among IS adoption, organizational capabilities, and organizational knowledge performance in U.S. public sectors.

Knowledge Retention Challenges in Information Systems Development Teams

Information systems development (ISD) is an integral part of organizational agility in today’s competitive business environment. High turnover, agile ways of working, and fluid work environments pose challenges for ISD. This paper explores the erosion of knowledge retention (KR) arising from ISD staff churn in a New Zealand-based financial organization in the aftermath of a major earthquake. In this exploratory study, the authors develop a causal model of KR in the ISD context, which articulates the challenges to and consequences of ineffective KR at the routine and exiting stages of KR. The model identifies four challenges—coordination complexity, insufficient resources for knowledge retention, insufficient attention to knowledge retention, and slow staff replacement and handover processes—that can affect the loss of ISD knowledge when routine and exiting KR fall into disarray. This study also reveals that role stress and reduced ISD agility reinforce the cycle of knowledge loss.

The Changes in Team Cognition and Cognitive Artifact Use During Agile Software Development Project Management

This study examines changing team cognition and cognitive artifact use as agile software development iterations progress to better understand team member interactions. The four case studies conducted observed the distributed cognition on the team changing from planning, managing, developing, and concluding tasks in iterations to deliver working functionality. Cognitive artifacts used throughout the iteration also changed. This study provides a clearer understanding of how and when team cognition and artifact use change as agile software development teams use artifacts to manage projects. Interactions between team members and artifacts move from individual to social interactions as the iteration progresses with frequent, short, continuous communication and interactions.

Functional and Visionary Leadership in Self-Managing Virtual Teams

In this conceptual article, we present a theory of leadership in self-managing virtual teams. We describe leadership in this setting as a process that results in the creation, reinforcement, and evolution of shared mental models and shared norms that influence team member behavior toward the successful accomplishment of shared goals. We distinguish two types of leadership. We identify leadership that works within and reinforces existing models and norms to influence team contributions as “functional” leadership. We identify leadership that results in changes in models and norms as “visionary” leadership. We propose that successful self-managing virtual teams require both types of leadership and that they will exhibit a paradoxical combination of shared, distributed functional leadership complemented by strong, concentrated, and centralized visionary leadership and that visionary leadership is enabled by functional leadership in the form of substantive team member contributions.

The mechanism behind informational fairness and project performance relationship: evidence from Pakistani construction organizations

Purpose

This study examines the relationship between employees' perceptions of informational fairness and project performance. Furthermore, it examines if this relationship is sequentially mediated by (1) knowledge sharing and role clarity and (2) communication openness and role clarity.

Design/methodology/approach

Data are collected from 302 full-time employees of seven project-based construction organizations in Pakistan. Data are analyzed through variance-based structural equation modeling technique and the Preacher and Hayes' bootstrapping procedure.

Findings

Results indicate that project employees' perceptions of informational fairness positively predict project performance. Moreover, this relationship is sequentially mediated by (1) communication openness and role clarity and (2) knowledge sharing and role clarity.

Originality/value

This study provides further insights on the informational fairness and project performance relationship by examining their underlying mechanisms. It draws on the much ignored context of Pakistan, and offers some implications for managers and researchers with regard to how behavioral factors may further enhance project performance.

Team implicit coordination based on transactive memory systems

Purpose

This study aims to examine how daily communication and transactive memory systems (TMSs) promote implicit team coordination, meaning when team members cooperate smoothly without engaging in explicit communication, in organizations. In TMSs, members share knowledge of who-knows-what with one another.

Design/methodology/approach

A survey was conducted with 216 teams consisting of 1,545 people in three organizations. The relationships among daily communication, TMSs and implicit coordination in the survey data and in team performance were analyzed using multi-level structural equation modeling.

Findings

Results confirmed a significant influence process model in which “daily communication → TMS → implicit coordination → team performance” at the team level. Therefore, as hypothesized, implicit coordination is positively related to team performance and daily communication has a positive relationship with implicit coordination through mediation by TMSs.

Originality/value

This study demonstrated the evidence of the relation between implicit coordination, TMS, team performance in organizational settings by using multi-level structural equation modeling.

Exploring the antecedents of organizational resilience practices – A transactive memory systems approach

Purpose

The purpose of this paper was to explore individual- and firm-level antecedents of the ability of a manufacturing firm's personnel to collaborate and integrate knowledge for organizational resilience practices.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors apply hierarchical regression analysis to study a sample of 192 European industrial equipment manufacturers. Data for each firm are collected from surveys of two key informants in each firm, as well as from public sources.

Findings

Firms' personnel’s ability to integrate information and knowledge for organizational resilience practices was positively related with the extent of the head of manufacturing's network of personal contacts inside the firm. This effect was stronger in firms with more formalized job descriptions and clearly defined roles. The head of manufacturing's orientation to teamwork and cooperation impacted this ability only in firms that did not financially incentivize cooperation. The authors also found that cooperation incentives and role formalization directly relate to firms' personnel’s ability to integrate information and knowledge for organizational resilience practices.

Originality/value

The study proposes to study organizational resilience practices through a transactive memory systems lens. The study is also the first to link characteristics of individual managers to firm-level resilience practices by examining the antecedents of firms' ability to integrate information and knowledge to recover from operational disruptions. Furthermore, the study serves to enhance the knowledge of resilience practices by examining the role of firm-level antecedents and their interplay with characteristics of individual managers.

Collective knowledge construction: a socio-cognitive approach

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to use correlation analysis to understand how knowledge structure, task structure and collaboration affect collective knowledge (CK) by the mediating mechanism of communication.

Design/methodology/approach

Drawing on an existing gap in the literature related to CK, a research model with five hypotheses is proposed. The hypotheses were analyzed based on data collected from 114 work-team practitioners using structural equation modeling.

Findings

The results indicate that communication, knowledge structure, task structure and collaboration significantly contribute to CK and that communication partially mediates the impact of these constructs on CK.

Originality/value

The value of the current research is in its contribution to the understanding of CK formation.

An analysis of design process and performance in distributed data science teams

Purpose

Often, it is assumed that teams are better at solving problems than individuals working independently. However, recent work in engineering, design and psychology contradicts this assumption. This study aims to examine the behavior of teams engaged in data science competitions. Crowdsourced competitions have seen increased use for software development and data science, and platforms often encourage teamwork between participants.

Design/methodology/approach

We specifically examine the teams participating in data science competitions hosted by Kaggle. We analyze the data provided by Kaggle to compare the effect of team size and interaction frequency on team performance. We also contextualize these results through a semantic analysis.

Findings

This work demonstrates that groups of individuals working independently may outperform interacting teams on average, but that small, interacting teams are more likely to win competitions. The semantic analysis revealed differences in forum participation, verb usage and pronoun usage when comparing top- and bottom-performing teams.

Research limitations/implications

These results reveal a perplexing tension that must be explored further: true teams may experience better performance with higher cohesion, but nominal teams may perform even better on average with essentially no cohesion. Limitations of this research include not factoring in team member experience level and reliance on extant data.

Originality/value

These results are potentially of use to designers of crowdsourced data science competitions as well as managers and contributors to distributed software development projects.

Two-path model of information sharing in new product development activities

To explore the mechanism of information sharing in new product development activities, 180 participants from 60 teams were invited to attend a simulation experiment. The results showed that unique information and common information are indispensable in new product development activities, and both of them have significant impact on team decision-making, but unique information is more significant than common information. At the same time, they were found to function in team decision-making through team cognition. That is, transactive memory systems played a mediating role in the relationship between unique information sharing and team decision-making, and shared mental models played a mediating role in the relationship between common information sharing and team decision-making. The experiment also showed that the relationship between unique information sharing and transactive memory systems was strengthened, while the relationship between common information sharing and shared mental models did not change significantly in the context of team psychological safety. By revealing the mechanism of information sharing, this experiment provided a useful reference for improving the efficiency and quality of team decision-making in new product development activities.

No teleworker is an island: The impact of temporal and spatial separation along with media use on knowledge sharing networks

Despite its prevalence, there is a lack of understanding regarding the effect of telework on an organization’s knowledge base. Recognizing the enabling role of electronic communication media, this article therefore addresses the interaction effects of media synchronicity and temporal as well as spatial separation among colleagues on sharing in knowledge networks. Special attention is paid to knowledge awareness (a form of metaknowledge representing “who knows what”) as well as homogeneous and heterogeneous knowledge sources to further explicate the relationship between coworker separation and knowledge sharing. Multiple surveys were placed between two smaller ethnographic investigations and combined with whole network data to form an in-depth study of 64 knowledge workers at a medium-sized European research and advisory organization. The results reveal that spatial separation directly reduces the frequency of knowledge sharing between colleagues, whereas temporal separation affects knowledge sharing through reduced knowledge awareness, resulting in lower job and proactive performance. The use of asynchronous media can serve to mitigate most of the negative effects of spatial separation on knowledge sharing but may also exacerbate the negative effect of temporal separation on teleworkers’ knowledge awareness of colleagues with identical expertise.

Sanchez D, Dean MD. Do I Really Know You and Does It Matter? Unpacking the Relationship Between Familiarity and Information Elaboration in Global Virtual Teams

We investigate the relationship between personal and professional familiarly, team effectiveness, and viability, and how these relationships are mediated by information elaboration in global virtual teams. We further assess whether virtuality moderates the relationships between both types of familiarity and information elaboration. Based on data collected from 63 global virtual supply chain teams, our results suggest that professional familiarity is positively associated with team information elaboration, which in turn relates positively to both manager-rated team effectiveness and team leader–rated viability. Furthermore, team virtuality enhances the influence of personal familiarity on information elaboration, but dampens the relationship between professional familiarity and information elaboration. Our results suggest that professional familiarity is a more salient antecedent of information elaboration in global virtual teams. We discuss the implications of our results for both theory and practice.

Mutual Monitoring of Resources in an Enterprise Systems Program

During the implementation of IT programs, competition among project managers for the scarce resources required for the completion of individual projects is a common phenomenon. To avoid such self-interested resource competition among individual project managers, according to agency theory, resource monitoring among project managers can serve as an effective management mechanism for effective resource conflict resolution within a program. Furthermore, team cognition theory suggests that an understanding of goals for each project among project managers can also serve as a solid foundation for effective resource monitoring. Social interdependence theory also suggests that positive goal interdependence among projects within a program can motivate project managers to engage in cooperative interactions, allowing them to accomplish individual project goals as well as the overall program's goals. Based on a survey of 146 enterprise system implementation programs, the results of this study confirm that mutual resource monitoring among project managers is positively associated with final program implementation efficiency. Goal understanding among project managers, as well as goal interdependence, is positively associated with the effectiveness of resource monitoring among project managers within the implementation program.

Space Exploration Illuminates the Next Frontier for Teams Research

Effective teamwork is beneficial for organizations on Earth, but is a sine qua non for teams venturing into outer space. The prospect of sending a team to Mars by the year 2030 invites organizational scientists to take stock of what we know and what we still need to know about teams. The team endeavoring to Mars will be multicultural and interdisciplinary, living and working in uncomfortable and dangerous conditions, and doing so in close collaboration with distant teams back on Earth. Tackling the teamwork challenges associated with a mission to Mars present an opportunity to rapidly accelerate the science of teams. In this conceptual review, we explore seven complexities of teams that are both important and understudied. Results of structured interviews with experts on human space exploration regarding the nature of teamwork in long-duration space exploration illuminate seven complexities, or key features of teams, in general, that serve as a catalyst for identifying, informing, and motivating future directions of inquiry about teams. These features, and the research they inspire, may enable organizations to build more effective teams on Earth and beyond.

A Multilevel Examination of the Impact of Team Interpersonal Processes

This study examined factors that affect individuals’ intentions to remain with their current organization, as well as team-level, manager-rated effectiveness, using a sample of 78 teams from a large grocery store chain within the Baltic region. The results suggest that team interpersonal processes play a key mediating role in facilitating both outcomes. Specifically, interpersonal processes had a positive effect on manager-rated team effectiveness. Furthermore, the quality of team interpersonal processes had a significant positive impact on employees’ commitment to the organization, which, in turn, was found to enhance employees’ intention to remain in that organization. Similarly, professional familiarity served as a salient antecedent of team interpersonal processes. This study, thus, offers evidence of the multilevel importance of interpersonal processes as a critical driver of both team- and individual-level outcomes.

Perceived shared understanding in teams: The motivational effect of being 'on the same page'

This study examines the role of perceived shared understanding with regard to team performance, taking into account the motivational mechanisms (i.e., group potency and team effort) involved in this relationship and the moderating role of task routineness. Using a multisource approach and a team-level design, we collected data from 101 teams (i.e., 381 members and their 101 immediate superiors) working in a Canadian public safety organization. The results support the mediating role of group potency and team effort in the relationship between perceived shared understanding and team performance. Moreover, the results show that the relationship between team effort and team performance is moderated by task routineness, such that this relationship is stronger when task routineness is high. On the whole, the findings of this study help to better understand why and under what circumstances perceived shared understanding may enhance team performance.

Assessing member expertise in groups

In contemporary organizations, the knowledge needed to perform work is frequently housed within groups. In order to effectively leverage this knowledge, however, groups must identify relative member expertise. Unfortunately, assessments of expertise in groups can be error-prone, given the human tendency to rely on efficient but noisy schemas and heuristics. The purpose of this paper is to consider the factors that lead to more mindful and, ultimately, more useful expertise attributions in task groups. We begin with the observation that mindful expertise attribution can be modeled as a motivation problem using expectancy theory. In order for group members to move beyond superficial expertise attributions, they must see value in doing so (valence) and they must feel that exerting that effort will be both possible (expectancy) and beneficial (instrumentality). We build on this basic observation to propose an “expertise dependence theory” of mindful attributions in task groups.

Language Quality in Requirements Development: Tracing Communication in the Process of Information Systems Development

Knowledge transfer, communication, and shared understanding between project stakeholders are important factors in requirements development and in the information systems development process. Nevertheless, the impact and analysis of language and linguistic communication during requirements development is still an open issue. In our research, we claim that requirements development depends on the ability to deal with language and communication issues in practice and reach shared understanding of requirements. We propose the concept of language quality as a suitable means for analyzing the emergence of coherent and meaningful requirements. By applying the thereby developed dimensions of language quality to a real information systems development project, we are able to obtain practice-grounded propositions to further evaluate the consequences of different actions on the interaction and communication process of stakeholders in requirements development.

The cognitive underpinnings of adaptive team performance in ill-defined task situations

As the nature of work changes due to technology, organizational restructuring, and globalization, complex tasks have emerged that necessitate the use of teams. Oftentimes, teams complete tasks that have more than one plausible solution or engage in performance episodes under uncertain circumstances. Therefore, teams are called upon to be highly adaptable to these ill-defined tasks by responding to continuous changes in the task environment. We propose that dimensions of team cognition (i.e., shared mental models and transactive memory systems) help drive adaptation. In recognition of the additional cognitive demands placed upon teams who must be highly adaptable, we believe much can be gained from taking a closer look at the facets of team-level cognitive variables. The current effort aims to provide a more comprehensive explanation of emergent cognitive states, and how they interact to drive adaptive team performance, especially within the context of ill-defined problems.

Collaborative Technology and Dimensions of Team Cognition

The purpose of this study was to explore team cognition as a multidimensional activity comprised of team learning, team reflexivity, and team mental model during project teamwork. A laboratory experiment was conducted to examine the effects of two different modes of collaboration – face-to-face and technology-mediated collaboration on team cognition and its subsequent impact on task outcomes. Team cognition was represented as a second-order construct comprised of three first-order dimensions. A direct-observation rating scale used to derive measures of the first-order dimensions was shown to have strong psychometric properties. The partial least squares method was used to test a structural equation model where the second-order construct was presented as a mediator between collaboration mode and task outcomes (productivity and interaction quality). As hypothesized, team cognition significantly influenced productivity and interaction quality outcomes. Further, collaboration mode significantly improved team cognition through its specific effects on the team learning, team reflexivity, and team mental model development. The main contribution of the study lies in its finding that team cognition can be viewed as a hierarchical construct that accounts for distinct yet cognition-related behaviors. This finding offers an extension to current related research models and identifies behavioral indicators that can be monitored by project managers in developing prescriptive measures aimed at promoting project success.