Trust your teammates or bosses? Differential effects of trust on transactive memory, job satisfaction, and performance
| Published date | 28 December 2012 |
| Pages | 222-242 |
| Date | 28 December 2012 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/01425451311287880 |
| Author | Rommel Robertson,Christine Gockel,Elisabeth Brauner |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour |
Trust your teammates or bosses?
Differential effects of trust on
transactive memory, job
satisfaction, and performance
Rommel Robertson
Department of Psychology, Farmingdale State College,
The State University of New York, Farmingdale, New York, USA
Christine Gockel
Department of Psychology, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland, and
Elisabeth Brauner
Department of Psychology, Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center,
The City University of New York, New York, New York, USA
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine, in two studies, whether tr ust in teammates and
trust in management influenced transactive memory and how strongly transactive memory, in turn,
influenced perceived team performance and job satisfaction.
Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected via questionnaires from two samples of
employees (n
1
¼383 and n
2
¼40). Regression and mediational analyses were employed to test the hypotheses.
Findings – Trust in teammates predicted transactive memory and transactive memory, in turn,
predicted perceived team performance and job satisfaction. Trust in management did not predict
transactive memory, but it did predict job satisfaction.
Research limitations/implications – Data are cross-sectional and cannot establish cause-effect-
relationships. Furthermore, objective performance measures could not be obtained due to the nature of
the studies. Thus, future studies need to use longitudinal or exp erimental designs and objective
performance measures.
Practical implications – Intangible factors such as trust can strengthen knowledge sharing and
transactive memory systems. This, in turn, can positively impact job satisfaction and team
performance. Managers and team leaders should pay more attention to building a climate of tr ust and
participation, both within teams and between team members and supervisors/management.
Originality/value – Results of two studies show the differential effectsof tr ust in teammates versus
trust in management. For finishing a knowledge-intensive task in a team, trust in teammates is more
important than trust in management because trust influences transactive memory, which, in turn,
leads to positive performance outcomes. However, for other organizational outcomes such as job
satisfaction, trust in management can be as important as well.
Keywords Trust, Job satisfaction, Team performance, Knowledge management,
Transactive memory
Paper type Research paper
Knowledge exchange in the work place
Organizations can be viewed as multi-layered knowledge receptacles. The information
or knowledge stored in these receptacles exists at three levels: the organizational, team,
and individual level. How knowledge from all three levels is eventually combined to
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
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Employee Relations
Vol. 35 No. 2, 2013
pp. 222-242
rEmeraldGroup PublishingLimited
0142-5455
DOI 10.1108/01425451311287880 The authors contributed equally to this paper.
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35,2
facilitate effective functioning of the organization and to enable knowledge
management is deeply rooted in its transactive memory system. T he concept of a
transactive memory was first described by Wegner et al. (1985) as a framework
for understanding the nature of cognitive interdependence of individuals in c lose
relationships (see also Wegner, 1986, 1995). Transactive memory is defined as “an
organized store of knowledge that is contained entirely in the individual memory
systems of the group members and a set of knowledge-relevant transactive processes
that occur among them” (Wegner et al., 1985, p. 256). Thus, transactive memor y
encompasses both an individual component (an individual’s knowledge about someone
else’s knowledge) and a social component (communication among individuals).
Our goal is to investigate some of the individual-level factors that influence the
development of transactive memory. Among such factors, trust is particularly crucial
because it influences whether individual group members are willing to share and
exchange information and knowledge (Holste and Fields, 2010; McNeish and Mann,
2010; Niu, 2010; Sarker et al., 2011). We are more specifically interested in investigating
whether different sources of trust have different effects on transactive memory.
At the same time, knowledge sharing and transactive memory influence various
group and organizational outcomes (e.g. Zhang et al., 2007). We are particularly
interested in team performance and job satisfaction as outcom es, which are central for
organizational success (Harter et al., 2010; Ng et al., 2009).
Transactive memory
A transactive memory system develops when individuals are brought together for
some specific task and engage in social interaction. Through social interaction (i.e.
verbal and non-verbal communication), knowledge is combined to serve the function of
the team, thereby creating and, at the same time, using a transactive memory system.
The system works because individuals use each other as external memor y stores.
A transactive memory encompasses shared knowledge (integration of knowledge),
unshared knowledge (differentiation of knowledge), metaknowledge (knowledge about
knowledge), communication among group members (transactivity, which includes
seeking and sharing knowledge), and the degree to which group members are mutually
dependent on one another (cognitive interdependence; which indicates how closely tied
the transactive memory system is; e.g. Brauner and Robertson, 2009).
The main advantage of transactive memory as a constr uct over other constructs
(for instance tacit knowledge sharing) is that it helps to explain the benefits of
unshared knowledge in groups or organizations. Instead of exchanging unshared
knowledge with colleagues, metaknowledge (knowledge about knowledge, e.g. Nelson,
1992, 1999) is shared. It requires less memory capacity and allows for less redundancy
within a group. For instance, I do not have to remember all de adlines for filing reports
in my department if my co-worker knows them all; instead of keeping track of the
deadlines myself, I can ask my co-worker, or, even better,I can rely on my co-worker to
remind me when it is time to submit a report. In work groups, metaknowledge allows
group members to identify and address experts in areas in which the member him- or
herself lacks expertise. The concept is extremely valuable for organizations because
transactive memory allows for less redundant knowledge and more expert knowledge
without jeopardizing coordination within a group or organization. It can also help in
understanding and predicting multiple individual and team outcomes.
Following Ren and Argote (2011), who point out that the terms transactive memory
and transactive memory system are being used inconsistently in the literature, we will
223
Trust your
teammates
or bosses?
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