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The three preceding articles highlight the ongoing research designed to better understand shared mental models and their role in team functioning. In some respects, research scholars have achieved an integrated view (a.k.a. shared mental models) about the field (e.g., the growing body of empirical research results underscores the important role of the shared mental model construct in effective team functioning). In other respects, our mental models have not converged. Thus, we still need additional conceptual and empirical research to advance the field (e.g., many dimensions of mental models have been identified, but no agreement exists about their validity or the completeness of the list). In this response, I use the similar, divergent, and complementary views presented in the trio of articles by myself, Cannon-Bowers (this volume), and Rentsch and Small (this volume) to demonstrate how the process of scholarship is analogous to the mental model convergence process.

The construct of shared mental models has garnered interest among team researchers as a means to explain how teams develop into highly coordinated units. McComb (this volume) contributes to this body of work by synthesizing a host of empirical findings and theoretical assertions into a model of mental model convergence. This advancement is significant, because it begins to shed light on how shared mental models may develop in teams. The present commentary takes McComb's work a step further by combining it with findings from the area of team training. The result is a set of propositions describing when various training interventions may be most beneficial to the team and the mental model convergence process, and why. These propositions are intended to stimulate further efforts to empirically validate team-training strategies as a means to foster development of shared mental models.

Mental model convergence occurs as team members interact. By collecting information and observing behaviors through their interactions, team members’ individual mental models evolve into shared mental models. This process requires a cognitive shift in an individual's focal level. Specifically, the individual assigned to the team must shift his or her focus from thinking about the team domain using an individual perspective to thinking about it from a team perspective. Thus, mental model convergence may be the key to understanding how individuals are transformed into team members. This chapter presents a framework describing the mental model convergence process that draws on the extant research on group development and information processing. It also examines temporal aspects of mental model convergence, the role of mental model contents on the convergence process, and the relationship between converged mental models and team functioning. Preliminary evidence supporting the framework and the important role that converged mental models play in high-performing teams is provided. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the implications of this mental model convergence framework for research and practice.

“Multi-Level Issues in Organizations and Time” is Volume 6 of Research in Multi-Level Issues, an annual series that provides an outlet for the discussion of multi-level problems and solutions across a variety of fields of study. Using a scientific debate format of a key scholarly essay followed by two commentaries and a rebuttal, we present, in this series, theoretical work, significant empirical studies, methodological developments, analytical techniques, and philosophical treatments to advance the field of multi-level studies, regardless of disciplinary perspective.

Distributed performance arrangements are increasingly used by organizations to structure dyadic and team interactions. Unfortunately, distributed teams are no panacea. This chapter reviews some of the advantages and disadvantages associated with the geographical and temporal distribution of team members. An extended discussion of the implications of distributed team performance for individual, team, and organizational decision making is provided, with particular attention paid to selected cultural factors. Best practices and key points are advanced for those stakeholders charged with offsetting the performance decrements in decision making that can result from distribution and culture.

This commentary focuses on S. A. McComb's chapter on the process of mental model convergence and provides guidance for advancing this research stream. McComb's chapter highlights many of the theoretical and methodological challenges that have plagued the study of cognition in teams. This commentary addresses those challenges and offers suggestions for the next steps in this field. Specifically, it considers the complex and abstract nature of team cognition and offers an elaborated model for understanding cognitive similarity that includes cognitive similarity configurations.

Following from the cutting-edge work of Stephen Wolfram in A New Kind of Science (2002), in this chapter we propose “a new kind of OB” (organizational behavior) based on the varient approach to theory building and testing. In particular, we offer four simple, yet comprehensive theories to account for individual behavior, interpersonal relationships, group dynamics, and collectivized processes in organizations. In each case, two constructs, their association, and the levels of analysis of their operation are proposed. While the four theories proposed here are simple notions, they can explain a variety of complex phenomena and behavior in organizations.