Information Systems & Organization Management Seminar
| What | Seminar |
|---|---|
| When |
Oct 23, 2009
Oct 23, 2009
Oct 23, 2009 from 10:00 am to 11:30 am |
| Where | Pitts 4204 |
| Contact Name | Shelly Samuel |
| Contact Email | samues@rpi.edu |
| Contact Phone | 518.276.6682 |
Geneviève Bassellier
Assistant Professor, Desautels Faculty of Management, McGill University
ABSTRACT:
Geographically distributed teams face challenges with regards to the coordination of their work. Research suggests that sharing common knowledge among team members might be an effective coordination mechanism and can lead to improved integration of expertise and performance as well. However, the concept of common knowledge has been ill-defined and inconsistently measured in the past. Based on prior work on team cognition, virtual teams, and knowledge management, this paper develops a measure of virtual team common knowledge formed by four factors: common knowledge about (1) the task, (2) members’ expertise, (3) overlap in expertise, and (4) IT usage. The measure is validated empirically with 74 virtual teams in the field. The results also show that the effect of virtual team common knowledge on team performance is fully mediated by knowledge integration effectiveness.
This provides support for the premise that common knowledge can serve as a tacit coordination mechanism in virtual teams. Implications for research on shared cognition in virtual teams are discussed.