Knowledge at work in teams: communication, mental models and team roles in multidisciplinary teams

Completed Research Project

Title / Titel: Knowledge at work in teams: communication, mental models and team roles in multidisciplinary teams

Summary / Zusammenfassung: The development of shared mental models and the quality of communication are important prerequisites for knowledge-oriented cooperation in teams. Especially multidisciplinary task forces are increasingly frequent in both private companies and research teams and pose a great challenge for cooperation. In a pilot study, two R&D teams at different project stages (project START and project END) in a middle-sized Swiss enterprise were analysed with regard to team roles (formal and informal), communicative behaviour in team meetings and mental models of the team task. The metaphor analysis of mental models showed that the task force at the end of project stage used much more abstract and fewer metaphor models of the task, while the task force in the initial project phase used many different and very concrete metaphor models to represent the team task. Communicative behaviour in meetings was influenced by formal team roles, mother tongue, and project phase. Overall, team members judged the communication and cooperation to be better in the END project in comparison with the START project. Results indicate that the development of shared mental models should be managed explicitly by task force leaders, with specific attention to foreign and new team members and project phase. Implications for multidisciplinary cooperation, intercultural communication, and the inclusion of new team members in on-going projects are discussed.

Publications / Publikationen

Moser, K. S. (in press). The acquisition and transmission of knowledge and the role of metaphors. In M. Fischer & N. Boreham (Eds.), Work process knowledge and work-related learning in Europe. Brussels: Cedefop.

Moser, K. S. (2004). Metaphernanalyse als psychologische Wissensmanagement-Methode. In G. Reinmann-Rothmeier & H. Mandl (Eds.), Psychologie des Wissensmanagements. Perspektiven, Theorien und Methoden (pp. 329-340). Göttingen: Hogrefe.

Moser, K. S. (2003). Mentale Modelle und ihre Bedeutung: kognitionspsychologische Grundlagen des (Miss)Verstehens [Mental models and their Significance: Cognitive-psychological bases of (mis)understanding]. In U. Ganz-Blättler & P. Michel (Eds.), Sinnbildlich schief: Missgriffe bei Symbolgenese und Symbolgebrauch (Schriften zur Symbolforschung, Vol. 13, pp. 181-205). Bern: Peter Lang. http://www.symbolforschung.ch/seiten/karin_moser.pdf

Keywords / Suchbegriffe: work groups, communication, mental models, knowledge transfer, metaphor analysis, analogical reasoning, knowledge management

Project Leadership and Contacts / Projektleitung und Kontakte

Dr. K. S. Moser (Project Leader)

kmoser@sozpsy.uzh.ch

Funding Source(s) / Unterstützt durch: Nachwuchsförderungskredit der Universität Zürich, KTI, Private Sector (e.g. Industry)

Duration of Project / Projektdauer: Jan 2000 to Dec 2002