Effects of Dispersion, Electronic Communication & Transactive Memory Systems on Team Performance

This study proposes and tests a model that explains TMS development in collocated and geographically dispersed teams using communication technology to share knowledge. The paper reports on data from a longitudinal field study with 88 MBA teams that were split between collocated and dispersed teams. The results show that geographic dispersion and the specific type of electronic communication (email, video conferencing, chat) were essential to understanding the relationship between electronic communication and the early development of TMS. Electronic communication also determined whether the early development of TMS led to TMS deployment. Our results also show that the relationship between TMS and team performance was dependent on geographic dispersion. Taken together, our paper offers a theoretical contribution to the literature on TMS development as it pertains to electronic communication relative to team dispersion.