Enhancing team creative performance through social media and transactive memory system

Xiongfei Cao and Ahsan Ali

International Journal of Information Management, 2018, vol. 39, issue C, 69-79

Abstract: Effective teamwork, knowledge coordination, and knowledge creation are recognized as essential sources of team effectiveness and creativity in modern organizations. Nowadays, social media is significantly modifying the patterns in the use of technology to support knowledge management practices in teams. At the same time, the literature shows that transactive memory system (TMS), which refers to how team members share their distributed knowledge and expertise, is an important factor affecting team performance. However, minimal effort has been made to elaborate on the precise role of social media in supporting TMS for enhancing absorptive capacity (ACAP) and knowledge creation capability (KCC) of the team, which in turn might influence team creative performance (TCP). Therefore, to address this gap in the literature, a theoretical model is developed and validated. Survey data collected from 334 members of 68 knowledge work teams indicated that social media use at work has a positive relationship with TMS and both social media use at work and TMS are positively related to ACAP and KCC of the team. Results further indicated that ACAP positively influenced KCC, and both have a direct relationship with TCP. This study shows that careful investment in social media by an organization can enhance meta-knowledge of “who knows what” within teams. Finally, exploring external knowledge alone is not enough. Instead, organizations must ensure external knowledge is utilized to create new knowledge to improve TCP.

Keywords: Social media; Transactive memory system; Absorptive capacity; Knowledge creation capability; Team creative performance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0268401217305583
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ininma:v:39:y:2018:i:c:p:69-79

DOI: 10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2017.11.009

Access Statistics for this article

International Journal of Information Management is currently edited by Yogesh K. Dwivedi

More articles in International Journal of Information Management from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().