Transactive Memory Systems (TMS)
As groups become more diverse and geographically dispersed, they need to rely on a larger variety of skill sets and experiences among the group members. This wide diversity of skills requires group members to have the ability to know who knows what, who has what skills, and who has specific experiences related to the task at hand. A key construct that identifies with the ability of group members to encode, store, and retrieve information collectively (Liang et al., 1995) is known as transactive memory systems (TMS). From the seminal work on TMS, Liang et al. (1995) provided the best description of TMS in that TMS represents “an external storage device” (p. 385) that is accessible to all group members.
Liang et al. (1995) found that teams who trained together, compared to team members training apart from other team members, performed better and made fewer errors. Findings from Liang et al.’s study indicated that groups who trained together were more able to: “(a) recall different aspects of the task, (b) coordinate their task activities, and (c) trust one another’s expertise” (p. 390).
TMS Definitions
Since the inception of TMS from Liang et al. (1995), other research efforts have provided support for the cooperative memory systems that exist in groups (Lewis, 2003). Faraj and Sproull (2000) viewed TMS as an emergent property among groups. This emerging construct involves “socially shared cognitive processes that develop and evolve in order to meet the demands of task-based skill and knowledge dependencies” (p. 1556). Further, TMS has also been identified as being a multidimensional construct consisting of three components: specialization, credibility, and coordination. Akgün et al. (2005) provided the following definitions for each of these multidimensional constructs:
- Specialization: The differentiated structure of member knowledge.
- Credibility: Members’ beliefs about the accuracy and reliability of other members’ knowledge.
- Coordination: Effective and orchestrated knowledge processing (p. 1106).
References
Akgün, A. E., Byrne, J., Keskin, H., Lynn, G. S., & Imamoglu, S. Z. (2005). Knowledge networks in new product development projects: A transactive memory perspective. Information & Management, 42(8), 1105–1120. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.im.2005.01.001
Faraj, S., & Sproull, L. (2000). Coordinating expertise in software development teams. Management Science, 46(12), 1554–1568.
Lewis, K. (2003). Measuring transactive memory systems in the field: Scale development and validation. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88(4), 587–604. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.88.4.587
Liang, D. W., Moreland, R., & Argote, L. (1995). Group versus individual training and group performance: The mediating role of transactive memory. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 21, 384–393. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167295214009