Week 9 Application Assignment - Sheila de Vera

In the article, “Coordinating Expertise Among Emergent Groups Responding to Disasters,” the authors discussed transactive memory systems, an organization science theory about “knowledge coordination in groups.”  Transactive memory systems (TMS) “explains how people in collectives learn, store, use and coordinate their knowledge to accomplish individual, group, and organization goals” (Majcharzak, Jarvenpaa, & Hollingshead, 2007).  People in a TMS are experts and responsible for their area of expertise and entrust the others in the group to share their knowledge-base. 

Research conducted on TMS has resulted in the identification of three indicators of the level of TMS development: memory specialization, credibility, and task coordination.  According to the authors, “the greater the presence of each indicator, the more developed the TMS and the more valuable the TMS is for efficiently coordinating the actions of group members” (Majcharzak, Jarvenpaa, & Hollingshead, 2007).

An article titled “Transactive Memory System in New Product Development Teams” studied how TMS affects new product development teams (NPD).  The study analyzed survey data collected from 79 Turkish NPD project teams.   I saw connections from the TMS indicators of memory specialization, credibility and task coordination used to study these teams.

In the NPD study, the authors addressed the notion of “project-team memory” consisting of “mechanistic memory or electronic documents and databases” that “offers a basis for how teams collect, store, retrieve, coordinate, and interrelate their knowledge” (Akgun, Byrne, Keskin, & Lynn, 2006).  The authors also described how collective memory is also an important aspect of TMS.  The study defined collective memory as an example of “social memory” that includes information databases and filing cabinets, but also relationships with other people.

The study addressed credibility that in NPD teams, members are able to develop new products in a timely manner if they are aware of who possess what specific expertise and skillset.  Having credibility on a NPD team will lead members to turn to that person for a specific role on the project.  One of the respondents in the survey said, “when group members know who is good at what, they can plan their work more sensibly, assigning tasks to the people who will perform them best” (Akgun, Byrne, Keskin, & Lynn, 2006).  This statement makes it clear that credibility and task coordination go hand in hand in the success of a NPD team.

The implementation of TMS can enable NPD teams to “develop and launch new products faster through team members’ knowledge of their colleagues expertise and skills and successful application of that knowledge stimulates effective and quick decision making on product and process related issues and alternatives” (Akgun, Byrne, Keskin, & Lynn, 2006).  While this study focused on NPD project teams, I can see how TMS can lend itself to groups within the MCM program and at work.

References

Akgun, A., Byrne, J., Keskin, H. & Lynn, G. (2006). Transactive memory system in new product             development teams. IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management. (53)1. p. 95 – 111.

Majcharzak, A., Jarvenpaa, S., and Hollingshead, A. (2007). Coordinating expertise among           emergent groups responding to disasters. Organization Science. (18) 1.  p. 147-161.