Organizing for Information Retrieval in Transactive Memory Systems

Abstract

Advancing transactive memory (TM) theory, this research explores information retrieval between members of 12 preexisting organizational work teams. The teams examined are larger than the ad hoc groups studied in previousTM research. The central components are team members' (a) communication for topic-specific information retrieval, (b) perceptions of their own knowledge levels, and (c) perceptions of each others' knowledge levels. Social network analysis techniques were used to examine the communication ties between members at multiple levels. The emergent communication patterns were compared to theoretically expected patterns. The perceptions of self and others' expertise were used to understand the emergent patterns. The results show emergent communication patterns in these work teams only partially match the theoretical predictions and are highly related to members' perceptions of others' expertise. Self-reported expertise levels were not good indicators of the communication patterns. The results also reveal emergent structures counterintuitive to TM theory.

Dynamic information retrieval and allocation flows in project teams with discontinuous membership

“…Like maximum pseudo-likelihood p* modelling (Wasserman and Pattison, 1996;Palazzolo, 2005;Contractor et al, 2006), ERGM examines the probability of certain network configurations, or sub graphs, within the larger network. The benefit of Monte Carlo maximum likelihood estimations is that it most closely suits the interdependency of network observations and has been shown to produce more reliable estimates than pseudo-likelihood p* modelling Robins et al, 1999;Lubbers and Snijders, 2007).…”

“…Data were collected using an online survey, called the Knowledge Asset Mapping Exercise (KAME; Palazzolo, 2005;Yuan et al, 2005). The KAME instrument was customised for this team based on ethnographic (Ibrahim and Paulson, 2008) and computational modelling research (Ibrahim and Nissen, 2007) and additional consultation with the project manager.…”

Determinants of knowledge-sharing networks in primary care

“…The survey, which was inspired by the Knowledge Asset Mapping Exercise in Palazzolo (2005) and structured according to the format proposed by Wasserman and Faust (1994) for network data collection, included questions about respondent attributes (i.e., gender, years of experience, affiliations with formal groups) and advice seeking relationships with other pediatricians in the respective LHA (a roster was used with all of the pediatricians' names listed in the survey). The following question was asked to physicians to collect advice ties data: "Suppose that you are confronted with a clinical problem that is affecting one of your patients, for which you cannot find a solution yourself.…”

Making sense of strangers' expertise from signals in digital artifacts

“…Understanding perceptions of signals is important since research has shown that perceptions of expertise is more influential than actual expertise in expertise seeking [31].…”