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Summary
The purpose of this paper is to highlight several fundamental questions that remain regarding shared cognition: (1) What must be 'shared'? (2) What does 'shared' mean? (3) How should 'shared' be measured? and (4) What outcomes do we expect shared cognition to affect? A general and integrative description of these questions is provided. In addition, the value of shared cognition is discussed along with recommendations for future research. Copyright (c) 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Introduction
The notion that shared cognition benefits team and organizational performance has been around for over 20 years (see Cannon-Bowers et al., 1993; Klimoski and Mohammed, 1994). In the past ten years, interest in this concept has grown tremendously, as evidenced by this volume and the number of chapters and articles appearing about the topic. However, as we look across the body of theorizing and empirical study, we note a number of issues associated with shared cognition that must be addressed if the utility of this concept is to be exploited fully. Hence, our goal here is to highlight - in a broad sense - several fundamental questions that exist regarding shared cognition. We will not attempt to review or even summarize the vast literature in these areas. Rather, we seek to provide a general, integrative description of the problems we think confront the field. In addition, as editors we take the liberty of being critics - bringing attention to the crucial issues but not necessarily providing the answers to them. Hopefully, our observations will stimulate others to conduct needed research.
As noted, we believe that several fundamental questions regarding the nature of shared cognition still exist. These fall into four broad (and related) categories: (1) What is shared? (2) What does 'shared' mean? (3) How should 'shared' be measured? and (4) What outcomes do we expect shared cognition to affect? The remainder of this paper is organized around these issues. But before we even address these, we thought it necessary to first review the most fundamental question of all: what do we gain by invoking the shared cognition construct in the first place? We conclude the paper with recommendations for future directions.
What is the Value of the Shared Cognition Construct?
To begin our discussion, we...