Teams perform cognitive activities such as making decisions and assessing situations as a unit. The team cognition behind these activities has traditionally been linked to individual knowledge and its distribution across team members. The theory of interactive team cognition instead argues that team cognition resides in team interactions and that it is an activity that takes place in a rich context that needs to be measured at the team level. This article describes this dynamic perspective on team cognition, some research that supports it, and the implications for measuring, understanding, and improving team cognition.
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