Instalación y configuración de roles que ejercerá el servidor

Part I, Section I. Part I reviews the current literature on team cognition, concentrating specifically on findings relating the cognitive processes situation awareness and transactive memory. Team cognition received much attention in the research community during recent years, and is increasingly important in team performance or in the effectiveness of socio- technical systems (Cooke, Gorman, & Winner, 2007). Researches define team cognition as a dynamic activity that represents the knowledge of an entire team while it interacts within a socio-technical system (Cooke et al., 2013). Cooke and colleagues (2013) suggest that team cognition emerges over time in form of cognitive and dynamic processes; and refer to occurring mental activities at the team level. The processes include learning, planning, reasoning, decision-making, and problem solving, remembering, designing, and assessing assigned or environmental situations (Cooke et al., 2013). Team cognitive processes are congruent to individual cognitive processes, except that team cognition is readily observable through interaction, team communications, or the distribution of responsibilities of team members’ resources (Lewis, 2003).

Since the majority of teams’ performance involves cognitive tasks, processing information has become essential for task completion (Cooke, Salas, Cannon-Bowers & Stout, 2000; Salas, Dickinson, Converse & Tannenbaum, 1992, Schippers, Edmondson & West, 2014). Therefore, scholars, frequently, refer to these teams as information-processing systems (Schippers et al., 2014). The product of information processing is the communication and interaction, which includes the sharing of individual member’s cognition with other team members’ (Brauner & Scholl, 2000). Thus, information processing represents a combination of cognitive processes and social processes of communications (e.g., Cooke et al., 2013). To date, two theories exist that describe cognition information-processing systems more

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extensively, the Input-Process-Output Model (IPO) by Hackman (1987) and the Interaction Team Cognition (ITC) Theory by Cooke and colleagues (2013).

2.1.1 Input-Process-Output Model

In the early 20th century, the paradigm of team cognition followed general theoretical perspectives and led to development of the Input-Process-Output Model by Hackman (1987). This model views team cognition as shared cognition of the collective team members (the Input), rather than individuals in which sharing refers to complimentary or overlapping knowledge (Cooke et al., 2013). Different to the later described Interaction Team Cognition Theory (Cooke et al, 2013) in section 2.1.2, the primary unit of analysis of the IPO Model is the team member rather than the entire team. The individual held cognition model requires users to aggregated solutions in order to form a team model outcome (Cooke, Gorman, & Rowe, 2009). Because of the models level of analysis, its limitations have been extensively discussed in literature. Several studies demonstrated a disconnect between aggregated

measures of team knowledge and team performance (e.g., Cook et al., 2013; Cooke, Kegel, & Helm, 2001), and the failure to demonstrate expected cognitive convergence as teams get more experienced (Levesque, Wilson, & Whole, 2001; Mathieu, Heffner, Goodwin, Salas, & Cannon-Bowers, 2000). The following limitations of the Input-Process-Output Model have therefore been drawn (Cooke et al., 2013):

1. The model focuses solely on the knowledge structure within teams, rather than the interaction process, and misses the development of team cognition over time. 2. The perspective of this model holds the entire team knowledge equal to the collective

knowledge of all team members.

3. The team members are cognitively homogenous, and hence the similarity metrics do not reflect the knowledge of heterogeneous team members.

4. Lastly, team members’ interactions are more fluid and adaptable than individuals in highly dynamic environments.

Conclusively, the IPO Model posits the reliance on aggregation of cognitive components in teams. It accounts, only indirectly, for the interaction among team members that make them function as a system (Cooke et al, 2013).

2.1.2 Interaction Team Cognition Theory

The Interaction Team Cognition (ITC) theory by Cooke and colleagues (2013) focuses on the cognitive processes and interactions at the team level. While individual knowledge is a prerequisite for team cognition, ITC theory takes individual knowledge and its contribution to team cognition into account and builds on the emergent knowledge state-

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of-the-team. Although, this theory posits a relationship between individual knowledge and team performance, the ITC theory primarily predicts team interactions to account more for the variance in team performance than knowledge does as teams develop. Cooke and

colleagues propose in this theory, that knowledge aggregation is therefore irrelevant, and that team interactions simultaneously aggregate the knowledge of individual team members. Based on the theoretical ground of the ITC theory, team cognition becomes especially active during interaction and communication phases of team members. A team would therefore fail to succeed, if the phases did not coordinate properly to changes or unusual situations

(Gorman, Amazement, & Cooke, 2010). Table 2 below presents an exaggerated depiction of the shared cognition and ITC perspective (Cooke, Gorman, Myers & Duran, 2011).

Table 2. Two Perspectives on Team Cognition (after Cooke et al., 2011).

Shared Cognition Interactive Team Cognition

Focus Static knowledge Dynamic activity

Drives team cognition Shared mental models Team interactions

Primary locus of team

cognition Intracranial Extracranial

Unit of analysis Aggregation of individual data Team level

As mentioned before, during the interaction phases, cognitive processes are directly observable as explicit communication (e.g., e-mail, phone, chat) or as coordination patterns (e.g., communication flow of who talks to whom; Cooke et al, 2011, Cooke et al., 2013). Yet, even cross-level interactions, as well as some upwards or downward interactions, become causalities in the interaction framework, regardless of the observable level-of-analysis (Cooke & Gorman, 2009). Additionally, influence from both organizational and individual constraints at the team level is apparent. It makes the interactions meaningful in an entire team context (Cooke & Gorman, 2009, Cooke et al., 2013). Therefore, evaluators must study or assess teams as a system, without a focus on subcomponents, to understand how team members share information. Particularly, during critical changes in the environment that could potentially threaten future team outcomes (Cooke et al., 2013). Cooke and colleagues formulated the following suggestions for team effectiveness supported by the ITC Theory: 1. Joint perception in environmental changes by two or more team members, but not

all members, which would be unnecessary or become inefficient due to the teams’ heterogeneity.

2. Coordinate perception and interpretation of the task or environmental change. 3. Coordinate team actions to prevent future impacts of changes by one or more team

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Thus, assessment of team awareness and state of their task environment pose to be critical factors forming team interactions and communications. Not only is it critical for teams to assess their current task environment to take actions, but, it is just as important to assess how teams will accomplish their goals. Because of the increasing cognitive system complexity, a variety of cognitive constructs originated, that operate at the team level of interacting

processes such as team situation awareness and transactive memory. Given the limitations of the IPO Model, the following Chapters of this dissertation build upon the framework of the ITC-theory.