Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Abstract
This paper identifies existent structural tendencies of networks by analyzing organizational work teams at multiple levels. It uses social network analysis to achieve this multilevel (actor, dyad, triad, and network), actor attribute inclusive examination of the structures of communication ties between members of intact work teams. The focus is to understand why coworkers choose to retrieve information from specific teammates and not others according to Transactive Memory (TM) Theory.
This research extends the literature on TM theory in multiple ways. First, it continues the effort to move out of experimental lab settings by testing the theory in preexisting organizational work teams. In addition, it tests teams of considerably larger sizes than those of the experimental teams investigated in the majority of current literature. Thus, this research explores the extent to which TM theory can be generalized to organizational settings. This research also tests the underlying assumptions of the retrieval of information process of TM theory. That is, the theory assumes specific processes should exist in work teams, resulting in specific structures or patterns of organizing. The retrieval of information patterns in the network are not just a function of the people in the network, but how those people are connected to each other through the retrieval relation.
The results indicate that members of work teams follow some expected patterns but not others. In particular, multiple team members retrieve information from a common teammate. However, self-reported expertise is not a good indicator of these emergent retrieval patterns.