Antecedents of Transactive Memory Systems in Virtual Teams--The Role of Communication, Culture, and Team Size

One success factor of teams and organizations is an effectively managed knowledge management system (KMS). However, these systems are even hard to develop in regular face-to-face conditions. Virtual teams as a form of geographically dispersed work arrangement offer significant opportunities for companies and organizations around the globe. But besides the advantages of those teams they pose additional challenges to the leadership and the team itself in order to achieve their goals. The question is: can virtual teams develop an effective knowledge management system? And if so, what are important drivers? In this study we are driven by the question how communication affects the building of a knowledge management system, more specifically of a transactive memory system (TMS) as a subset of KMS, in virtual teams. The paper shows how important the perceived richness and experience of the communication media used is and how the team size of a virtual team as well as the culture of the team members influence the relationship between communication and the knowledge management.