Exploitative and exploratory learning in transactive memory systems and project performance

Based on organizational learning theory and the dynamic capability view, this study examines the relationships between transactive memory systems, team learning, and project performance in new product teams. Regression analysis is used to test the hypotheses in a sample of 218 Taiwanese firms. The findings indicate differential effects of three dimensions of a transactive memory system on exploitative and exploratory learning. Exploitative and exploratory learning are positively associated with project performance. The results also support that the interaction between exploitative and exploratory learning has a positive effect on project performance. Managerial implications and future research directions are discussed.     

Antecedents and consequences of team potency in software development projects

Developing new software quickly, successfully, and at low cost is critical in organizations. Ways of assessing the effectiveness of development teams has highlighted measures of factors, such as teamwork, group cohesiveness, and team integration, but the use of group potency theory (the collective belief of a group that it can be effective) is rare. In our study, we investigated antecedents of and consequences to group potency in software development project teams. By examining 53 software development project teams collected from small and medium-sized software firms in Turkey, we found, that team potency positively affected speed-to-market, development cost, and market success of the product. We also found that trust among project team members, past experiences of the members, and team empowerment had a positive impact on the team potency during the project. Managerial and theoretical implications are discussed.     

The effect of governance on global software development: An empirical research in transactive memory systems

ContextThe way global software development (GSD) activities are managed impacts knowledge transactions between team members. The first is captured in governance decisions, and the latter in a transactive memory system (TMS), a shared cognitive system for encoding, storing and retrieving knowledge between members of a group.ObjectiveWe seek to identify how different governance decisions (such as business strategy, team configuration, task allocation) affect the structure of transactive memory systems as well as the processes developed within those systems.MethodWe use both a quantitative and a qualitative approach. We collect quantitative data through an online survey to identify transactive memory systems. We analyze transactive memory structures using social network analysis techniques and we build a latent variable model to measure transactive memory processes. We further support and triangulate our results by means of interviews, which also help us examine the GSD governance modes of the participating projects. We analyze governance modes, as set of decisions based on three aspects; business strategy, team structure and composition, and task allocation.ResultsOur results suggest that different governance decisions have a different impact on transactive memory systems. Offshore insourcing as a business strategy, for instance, creates tightly-connected clusters, which in turn leads to better developed transactive memory processes. We also find that within the composition and structure of GSD teams, there are boundary spanners (formal or informal) who have a better overview of the network’s activities and become central members within their network. An interesting mapping between task allocation and the composition of the network core suggests that the way tasks are allocated among distributed teams is an indicator of where expertise resides.ConclusionWe present an analytical method to examine GSD governance decisions and their effect on transactive memory systems. Our method can be used from both practitioners and researchers as a “cause and effect” tool for improving collaboration of global software teams.     

Antecedents and consequences of team memory in software development projects

Team memory is important, yet it is rarely addressed in papers on software development. We investigated the antecedents and consequences of team memory (both declarative and procedural) in software development projects. By examining 67 projects in the IT departments of 38 firms, we found, using PLS that customer orientation and innovation orientation was positively associated with both declarative and procedural memory, social responsibility was positively related to declarative memory, and systematic management control were negatively associated with declarative memory but positively associated with procedural memory. We also found that: declarative memory was positively related to the market success of the software, and procedural memory was positively related to speed-to-market (launching software faster) to the extent that memory was dispersed throughout the project team. Managerial and theoretical implication were further discussed.     

New product development team intelligence: Antecedents and consequences

Our study investigated the effect of team knowledge on new product development (NPD). By investigating 207 NPD projects, we found that the declarative and procedural knowledge of the team and their use of IT had a positive influence on the team's knowledge base; and that the higher the functional diversity of the project team, the greater their overall knowledge. We also found that team knowledge positively impacted new product creativity and success in the market place.     

Enabling knowledge diversity to benefit cross-functional project teams: Joint roles of knowledge leadership and transactive memory system

Team members’ knowledge diversity has a “double-edged sword” nature within cross-functional project teams (CFPTs), showing an inconsistent relationship with team performance. For realizing this diversity’s potential benefits, leadership is usually an essential enabler. However, little is known about how knowledge leadership achieves this. This study proposed that knowledge leadership moderates the effect of knowledge diversity on team performance through a transactive memory system (TMS). By empirically testing survey data from 96 CFPTs, we found that knowledge leadership enables a positive linkage of knowledge diversity-CFPT performance by successively breaking down barriers to communication and cooperation in TMS development and functioning.     

Functional Diversity,Absorptive Capability and Product Success: The Moderating Role of Project Complexity in New Product Development Teams

Absorptive capability appears to be an appealing concept in the technology and innovation management literature. Though absorptive capability attracts researchers from a variety of disciplines, team‐level empirical research on it is scant. In this study, we operationalized team absorptive capability as a multidimensional construct involving knowledge acquisition, assimilation and exploitation. This study also explores the moderating effect of project complexity between team absorptive capability and new product success. In studying the data from 239 new product development projects using partial least squares structural equation modelling, we found that team functional diversity is a significant determinant of team absorptive capability. Moreover, regarding the relationships between team absorptive capability and new product success, we uncovered that (i) new product success is dependent on the ability to understand the acquired knowledge, and (ii) the teams appear to be more cautious in putting the assimilated knowledge into practice to the extent that project complexity increases.     

Knowledge and information awareness for initiating transactive memory system processes of computer-supported collaborating ad hoc groups

This paper presents an innovative approach for initiating processes of a transactive memory system in newly formed groups of experts collaborating computer-supported in a complex problem-solving task. Our empirical study compared 15 experimental and 15 control groups, each consisting of triads. In the experimental condition, the triads were provided with a tool for fostering knowledge and information awareness, that is, being informed about the knowledge and the underlying information of the collaboration partners in form of digital concept maps. In the control condition, the groups had no access to this tool. Results confirmed the potential of the tool to initiate processes of a transactive memory system: shared agreement of the knowledge of the other group members’ knowledge proved to influence group performance positively. In addition, previous findings of the tool’s potential to establish knowledge and information awareness and to augment group performance could be replicated. However, the postulated mediating effect of processes of a transactive memory system concerning the impact of knowledge and information awareness on group performance did not reach statistical significance. Aspects for future studies and implications of these findings regarding their practical implementation, for example, in teams of organizations, are discussed.     

Acquiring and sharing tacit knowledge in software development teams: An empirical study

ContextSharing expert knowledge is a key process in developing software products. Since expert knowledge is mostly tacit, the acquisition and sharing of tacit knowledge along with the development of a transactive memory system (TMS) are significant factors in effective software teams.ObjectiveWe seek to enhance our understanding human factors in the software development process and provide support for the agile approach, particularly in its advocacy of social interaction, by answering two questions: How do software development teams acquire and share tacit knowledge? What roles do tacit knowledge and transactive memory play in successful team performance?MethodA theoretical model describing the process for acquiring and sharing tacit knowledge and development of a TMS through social interaction is presented and a second predictive model addresses the two research questions above. The elements of the predictive model and other demographic variables were incorporated into a larger online survey for software development teams, completed by 46 software SMEs, consisting of 181 individual team members.ResultsOur results show that team tacit knowledge is acquired and shared directly through good quality social interactions and through the development of a TMS with quality of social interaction playing a greater role than transactive memory. Both TMS and team tacit knowledge predict effectiveness but not efficiency in software teams.ConclusionIt is concluded that TMS and team tacit knowledge can differentiate between low- and high-performing teams in terms of effectiveness, where more effective teams have a competitive advantage in developing new products and bringing them to market. As face-to-face social interaction is key, collocated, functionally rich, domain expert teams are advocated rather than distributed teams, though arguably the team manager may be in a separate geographic location provided that there is frequent communication and effective use of issue tracking tools as in agile teams.