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This paper explores how group cognition can provide a basis for understanding knowledge creation and sharing that does not depend on the assumption of extant internal representations that filter sense‐data. Literature from a wide variety of disciplines is synthesized to provide an ecologically‐oriented model of group cognition. Group cognition means moving away from idiosyncratic, subjective mental models of the world to the notion that agents with similar capacities to act can potentially discern similar action possibilities in the world. It changes the direction from discovery and alignment of mental models to selectivity calibration and informational structure sharing. “What one thinks” at a given moment is dependent on boundary objects available at the moment that predominately originate with human actors. Therefore, in this way, one’s cognition is predominately group cognition. Based on the breadth of the topic, this paper must be considered a work‐in‐progress, a snapshot of the exploration of such a complex subject. It provides an alternate view of knowledge creation and sharing as the basis for incorporating more effective collaboration functionality into technologies that support joint work. This paper challenges long‐held views of extant internal representations that filter sense‐data and offers a radically different ecological‐based model of group cognition.

The aim of this article is to present a viewpoint from learning as individual and group cognition for the benefit of organization learning scholarship.

Conceptual viewpoint of the author.

The results demonstrate that perspective of intentionality is important for understanding how learning as cognition develops into organizational learning.

Organizations that recognize perspective as the agency by which learning as cognition develops organizational learning have a better opportunity to remain competitive.

This paper provides a basis to advance understanding on how perspective influences learning as cognition as a developmental process for organizational learning.

This qualitative study investigated how small group communication influences the development of shared mental models in a committee of public librarians addressing a problem-solving task. It examines the influence of communication themes, functions, roles, and rules on the group's development of shared mental models about the task and about team interaction. Data were collected over the course of a year from group meetings, email messages, group documents, and participant interviews and then analyzed using existing coding schemes and qualitative coding techniques. The findings indicate that within the group there was a strong superficial convergence around the task mental model and the team interaction mental model but a weaker convergence at a deeper level. Analysis of the group communication data shows that the group focused discussion on understanding the problem and identifying tasks, enacting group roles and rules that facilitated sharing information. The functions of their messages focused on task communication. The findings suggest that, in this group, communication themes most heavily influenced the development of a shared mental model about the task, while communication roles, rules, and functions were more influential toward the development of a shared mental model about team interaction. Implications for practice include adopting intentional tactics for surfacing mental models at various points in the group life and anchoring the emerging model within the collective cognition of the group through devices such as narratives, objects, or documentary materials.

This empirical study tests hypothesized relationships between team effectiveness and a measure of shared cognition that quantifies the degree of similarity between knowledge of the actual group and beliefs about preferred group states.

The proposed model of shared cognition is based upon the triadic structure of actual‐ideal‐ought cognitive representations employed within self‐discrepancy theory. Self discrepancy theory proposes that the degree of discrepancy (similarity) between cognitive representations of the actual self and representations of both the ideal and ought self represents particular emotional situations. This study elevates the concept of a self‐state representation to the group level by asking group members to list attributes associated with the actual, ideal and ought group‐states (group‐state representations). Shared cognition for 56 project teams is measured by comparing the actual group‐state representations of each member with both the ideal and ought group‐state representations of the other members. This extends the measurement of shared cognition beyond the aggregation of individual measures and creates the potential for capturing group level cognition structures that have the potential to evoke affect, influence motivation and impact outcomes.

Hypotheses proposing a relationship between team effectiveness and both shared actual‐ideal and shared actual‐ought group‐state representations, mediated by cohesion and confidence in the team's ability, respectively, are mostly supported.

By examining the degree of similarity between perceptions of what currently exists (knowledge) and what is preferred (belief) this research examines evaluative cognitive structures that have the potential to evoke affect, influence motivation and impact on outcomes.

Achieving temporal synchronization may require that work groups develop shared cognitions about the time-related demands they face. We investigated the extent to which group members developed shared cognitions with respect to the three temporal perceptions: time orientation (present vs. future), time compression, and time management (scheduling and time management). We argue that group members are more likely to align their perceptions to temporal characteristics of the group or organizational context (e.g. time compression, scheduling, proper time allocation) rather than to each other’s individual time orientations. Survey data collected from 104 work groups are largely consistent with these expectations. The implications of shared cognitions on time for work group functioning and performance are discussed.

Online collaboration in today's world is a topic of genuine interest to Internet researchers. The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of group knowledge heterogeneity (GKH) in open collaboration performance using the mediating mechanisms of group cognition (GC) and interaction to understand the determinants of the success of online open collaboration platforms.

Study findings are based on partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM), the formal mediation test and moderating effect analysis from Wikipedia's 160 online open collaborative groups.

For online knowledge heterogeneous groups, open collaboration performance is mediated by both GC and collaborative interaction (COL). The mediating role of GC is weak, while the mediating role of COL is strengthened when knowledge complexity (KC) is higher. By dividing group interaction into COL and communicative interaction (COM), the authors also observed that COL is effective for online open collaboration, whereas COM is limited.

These findings suggest that for more heterogeneous large groups, group interaction would explain more variance in performance than GC, offering an in-depth understanding of the relationship between group heterogeneity and open collaboration performance, answering what determines the success of online open collaboration platforms as well as explaining the inconsistency in prior findings. In addition, this study expands the application of Interactive Team Cognition (ITC) theory to the online open collaboration context.

Based on the theory of bounded rationality, the purpose of this paper is to explore the role played by top managerial management cognition in firms' efforts to obtain and maintain competitive advantage in a dynamic environment.

A research framework of the relations between environment changes, management cognition, strategic actions, organizational capability evolution and organizational performance is built. Data are collected through interviews, internal documents, and external documents and consequently a qualitative database is built to construct a causal map between environment, cognition, strategic actions, and organizational capability. Then by applying this causal map, a case study analysis of Vanward Group is carried out to explore its management cognition, strategic actions, and organizational capability in a dynamic environment.

The research propositions were tested and confirmed that top managerial management cognition is of bounded rationality and in dynamic environment it exerts direct and critical effect on their firms' strategic actions and organizational capability. Further discussion is extended to the roles played by institutional factors in organizational strategic decision process and the roles of top management in organizational dynamic capability.

The generalizability of this paper's conclusions to other firms is to be tested by large sample quantitative research.

The research confirms the bounded rationality perspective in strategic management, and explores in depth the formation, evolution, and functions of top management cognition in a dynamic environment. It also emphasizes the non‐economic factors related to the continuous acquisition and maintenance of competitive advantages in a dynamic environment.

The paper releases the economic assumptions underlying industrial structure theory and resource‐based views by emphasizing the effect of top management cognition on organizational strategic actions and organizational capabilities. It further enriches the institution‐based view by illustrating how institutional environment affects top management cognition and consequently affects the changes in organizational strategic actions and organizational capability. Thus, the institutional context for organizational strategic decision making is emphasized. The paper contributes to research in dynamic capability by emphasizing top management roles in developing dynamic capability.

This chapter describes a two-year comparative study in two investment banking departments that investigated the relationship between identification, shared cognition, and group performance. The data replicates previous research that found a positive relationship between group members’ subjective experience of unity with their group, shared cognition, and group performance. However, in contrast to previous research, we found that identification did not facilitate but undermined such a subjective experience of unity. Identification, therefore, impeded shared cognition and group performance, as compared to an alternative way in which bankers experienced unity that we refer to as direct involvement.

As normative interventions (NIs) have been claimed to be effective in improving decision quality in groups, the aim of the paper is to address the effectiveness of NIs in ad hoc and established groups across several task domains.

Three experimental studies were conducted to test the effects of NIs on collective cognition, group rationality, and decision quality.

The first experimental study (58 groups) compared the effects of NIs on the emergence of group level cognitive structures. The results show that NIs lead to higher group cognitive complexity in established rather than in ad hoc groups. The second study tests the effects of NIs on group rationality (as emergent group competence) in a sample of 40 established groups and shows that NIs have synergic effects and foster group rationality. In the third study the insights of the first two studies are extended to a more realistic decision task performed by groups of managers. The results of the last study show that decision quality is higher in groups that received NIs as compared to groups that did not receive NIs.

The results contribute to the group cognition literature by showing the synergic effects of NIs.

The results show that NIs are simple and effective ways of improving information processing and decision quality in established decision‐making groups.

NIs help in achieving better decisions throughout society.

The paper is the first comprehensive test of the impact of NIs on group information processing across several cognitive tasks and the first to explore group rationality as an emergent group‐level competence.

This paper aims to test the influence of external information search (EIS) on knowledge elaboration and group cognitive complexity (GCC) under the moderating effect of absorptive capacity (AC is indicated by prior knowledge base and gender diversity).

The results of three studies (one field study and two experimental studies) are reported. The first study tests the interaction between EIS and the two dimensions of AC on group knowledge elaboration in a sample of 65 organizational groups. In the second study, EIS was directly manipulated and the interaction with AC in a sample of 65 groups was tested. In the last experimental study, the AC of the boundary spanner (highest level of expertise versus lowest level of expertise) was manipulated and the effects of EIS in a sample of 37 groups were tested.

The first study reveals a significant interaction between EIS and prior knowledge base on knowledge elaboration and points toward a compensatory interplay of EIS and AC on GCC. The results of the second study indicate that EIS increases the time spent on task, as well as the efficiency of knowledge integration (GCC per unit of time). Furthermore, EIS has the strongest positive effect on GCC in groups in which at least one of the AC dimensions is average or high. The results of the last study show that the AC of the boundary spanner compensates for the lack of absorptive capacity of the group and also show that the cognitive distance between the boundary spanner and the rest of the group has a negative influence on the efficiency of knowledge integration in groups.

The limitations of Study 1, common to non-experimental research (related to causality), are dealt with in the second and third studies that establish causality between EIS and GCC.

The paper has important implications for the management of information search effort in organizational groups, in particular the groups are advised to: engage in EIS to increase their cognitive repertoire and cognitive complexity, delegate, when possible, their most competent members to engage in boundary spanning activities as they will maximize the cognitive benefits of EIS and finally minimize the cognitive dissimilarity between the boundary spanner and the rest of the group to facilitate the effective integration of novel insights into the group cognition.

This study is among the first empirical attempts to uncover the causal effect of EIS on knowledge elaboration and GCC in groups and to uncover the role of the boundary spanner in the EIS efforts.