Team knowledge building requires teams to discuss all available pertinent task information. However, teams tend to extract information ineffectively due to impediments including the sampling advantage of common information and differential schema structures among team members. In addition, distributed teams have difficulty building knowledge due to constraints associated with low-bandwidth computer-mediated communication. Therefore, we tested a team training strategy aimed at facilitating team knowledge building in distributed teams. Data were collected from 40 teams of three distributed members. Teams were assigned to a training or control condition, and they completed a realistic problem-solving task. Training condition teams were trained to build knowledge by creating a knowledge object integrated with schema-enriched communication behaviors in text chat. Control condition teams communicated using chat only and received no training. Results indicated trained teams, relative to untrained teams, shared more unique information, transferred more knowledge, developed higher cognitive congruence, and produced higher quality solutions.
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