The Influence of Communication Networks and Turnover on Transactive Memory Systems and Team Performance

Though transactive memory systems (TMS) help improve group performance by increasing the ability of groups to coordinate and specialize, little work has investigated under what conditions TMS is more or less helpful for a group. Past work has explored ways that TMS can be disabled, such as through member turnover, but both turnover and role change after turnover could alter a group’s ability or willingness to use its TMS to improve future performance. Sixty-eight groups of three individuals produced an electrical circuit in an experiment where both the group’s TMS and turnover were manipulated independently. Group TMS reduced errors in producing the circuit and acted as an overall mediator of group training’s influence on performance, replicating prior work. Even though turnover was not directly related to performance or TMS, turnover moderated TMS’s effect on performance when member role change was taken into account. Role change increased the strength of the relationship between TMS and performance in groups that did not experience turnover. In groups that experienced turnover, role change reduced errors and reduced the strength of the relationship between TMS and performance. This study suggests new directions for research and proposes solutions for some inconsistent findings in past literature.