Abstract
We need to deepen our understanding of different types of “group” epistemology, which is a shared discipline of knowledge creation within a group.
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- 1.
Social cognitive theory provides a framework for understanding, predicting, and changing human behavior. The theory identifies human behavior as an interaction of personal factors, behavior, and the environment. In the model, the interaction between the person and behavior involves the influences of a person’s thoughts and actions. The interaction between the person and the environment involves human beliefs and cognitive competencies that are developed and modified by social influences and structures within the environment. The third interaction, between the environment and behavior, involves a person’s behavior determining the aspects of their environment and in turn their behavior is modified by that environment. In conclusion, social cognitive theory is helpful for understanding and predicting both individual and group behavior, and identifying methods in which behavior can be modified or changed (Bandura 1977, 1986, 1989, 2001; Jones 1989).
- 2.
Transactive memory theory is based on the idea that individual members can serve as external memory aids to each other (Wegner 1987). Members are able to benefit from each other’s knowledge and expertise if they develop a good, shared understanding of who knows what in the group/unit. A transactive memory system is built on the distinction between internal and external memory encoding. Often, individuals encode new knowledge internally, in their own memory. However, even more often individuals encode or use knowledge encoded externally (in diaries, in books, or even in other people’s memory). In these cases, the individual internally encodes the label (subject) of the knowledge as well as its location, but not the knowledge itself. Transactive memory systems are built on this view of individuals playing the role of external memory for other individuals who—in turn—encode meta-memories (i.e., memories about the memories of others). Wegner (1995) proposed that two types of meta-memories are maintained in people’s minds—information about the subjects of knowledge of each member (i.e., areas of expertise) and information about the locations of the knowledge. Knowledge is encoded, stored, and retrieved from the collective memory through various transactions between individuals, based on their meta-memories. Findings of both field and laboratory research indicate that transactive memory can serve as a facilitator of group performance, where groups whose members are aware of the knowledge, and expertise of other group members perform better than groups whose members do not possess such knowledge. Transactive memory systems enable groups to better utilize the knowledge that their members possess, and to reach higher levels of performance than they would have reached without such a system (for a review, see Moreland and Argote 2003). Members of small groups, who are colocated, can initially use surface information to infer rough estimates of “who knows what” (Wegner 1986), and can then reach greater accuracy in the attribution of expertise to other group members through common experiences (Moreland et al. 1998), such as group training (Liang et al. 1995) and group discussion.
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- 4.
Organizations consist of a “mosaic of groups structured by functional tasks” (Greenwood and Hinings 1996: 1033), such as legal, human resources, and marketing departments. Individuals within an organization’s functional departments interact with constituents of the organization’s market and nonmarket environments through occupational communities, that is, groups of individuals across organizations that share a common set of assumptions, language, and perspectives (Schein 1996; van Maanen and Barley 1984).
- 5.
“Occupational identities themselves are often complex. Notably, individuals tend to identify both with their professions and with the firms (or other organizations) where they are employed, but occupational identities may also be linked to work groups, functional departments, or geographical sites. In interaction with others, individuals situationally select the frame of reference appropriate to the group and structural context at hand, while reconciling their actions with other such frames which are also part of their personal history and identity” (Håkanson 2010: 1811).
- 6.
Transactive memory is the shared division of cognitive labor in relationships involving the encoding, storage, retrieval, and communication of information from different content domains (Wegner 1987). The central idea is that group members often develop an implicit plan for dividing knowledge responsibilities and assigning tasks based on their shared conception of one another’s expertise. Each individual becomes a specialist in some domains but not others, and individuals rely on one another to access information across domains. Transactive memory systems are most likely to develop when group members are interdependent and have convergent expectations about who will learn what (Hollingshead 2001).
- 7.
The concept of translation can be viewed as an alternative to the model of diffusion. Bruno Latour (1986) uses the term translation instead of knowledge transfer to depict a process where diffusion is in the hands of people. He contends that every person throughout a translation process acts in different ways—they modify, adapt, add on, etc. An idea, a text, or an object is thus transformed in the process. The fundamental differences are that ideas do not spread on their own (diffusion), but external energy (translation) is needed for an idea to spread (Latour 1987). Translation answers the question of energy that is needed for the process. It is thus people, both as creators and applicants, who transform an idea, whether they apply it for their own purpose or for someone else (Latour 1992). When knowledge is transferred from one context to another it is thus being translated (Latour 1991).
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Del Giudice, M., Carayannis, E.G., Peruta, M.R.D. (2012). Cross-Cultural Knowledge Management: Insights from Major Social Science Discipline. In: Cross-Cultural Knowledge Management. Innovation, Technology, and Knowledge Management, vol 11. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-2089-7_2
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