Journal of Organizational Behavior

J. Organiz. Behav. 22, 87±88 (2001)

Special issue preface

EDUARDO SALAS1 AND JANIS A. CANNON-BOWERS2*1University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL, U.S.A.2Naval Air Warfare Center Training System Division, Orlando, FL, U.S.A.

Recently, attention has been focused on determining the factors that contribute to effective team per-

formance in organizations. In particular, researchers have been interested in de®ning how shared cog-

nition among team members affects team performance (Cannon-Bowers et al., 1993; Klimoski and

Mohammed, 1994). The notion of shared cognition ± which has been variously described as team men-

tal models, shared mental models, shared knowledge, or team cognition ± encompasses the notion that

effective team members hold knowledge that is either compatible, complementary, and/or overlapping

with teammates. Furthermore, this shared knowledge enables team members to have more accurate

expectations and a compatible approach for task performance. Hence, shared knowledge is expected

to improve team, and in turn organizational, effectiveness.

Despite several years of research into the shared cognition construct, there are still many questions

to be answered regarding exactly what shared cognition is, what knowledge needs to be shared among

members, and how various types of shared knowledge affect organizational performance. In particular,

it is yet to be determined how best to measure shared cognition, and determine empirically its impact

on performance. This Special Issue focuses on recent thinking and research aimed at understanding

shared mental models in work teams.

This issue is comprised of eight papers. First Mohammed and Dumville synthesized various litera-

tures and developed a framework that outlines the relationships between team knowledge constructs.

The authors adopted a cross-disciplinary focus and incorporated related team knowledge domains

from other literatures to accomplish this. Then, research by Rentsch and Klimoski concentrates on

de®ning and testing antecedents of team member schema agreement as well as their indirect effects

on the effectiveness of teams. Their results indicate that demography, team size and experience, and

team member recruitment are all related to team member schema agreement, which was found to be

related to team effectiveness. After that, Gibson discusses a framework for collective cognition in work

groups developed to provide guidance in understanding and improving cognitive processes. Then,

Levesque, Wilson, and Wholey, discuss cognitive divergence and development of shared mental mod-

els in software development project teams. Their research suggests that shared mental models and

interaction decline as role differentiation of team members increase. Next, Ensley and Pearce develop

a theoretical framework linking shared strategic cognition to both group process and new venture per-

formance. Their results suggest that group processes leading to the development of shared strategic

cognition are more important that its outcomes in terms of predicting the performance of the organiza-

tion. Cannon and Edmondson follow with a focus on shared cognition research by examining shared

Copyright # 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

* Correspondence to: Janis A. Cannon-Bowers, Naval Air Warfare Center Training Systems Division, 12350 Research Parkway,Orlando, FL 32826-3457 U.S.A.E-mail: Cannon-Bowja@navair.navy.mil

beliefs about the failure in organizational work groups. Next, Smith-Jentsch, Campbell, Milanovich,

and Reynolds discuss the results of two studies that measured mental model similarity using a card

sorting approach in naturalistic training environments. The results of the ®rst study suggest that a

greater similarity was seen between mental models of higher-ranking of®cers and the expert model.

Additionally, the results of study two suggest that the use of computer-based training resulted in

greater similarity between the teamwork and expert models, increased similarity between trainees,

and consistency with which teamwork knowledge was represented by individuals. Finally,

Cannon-Bowers and Salas provide a general and integrative description of several fundamental ques-

tions regarding shared cognition. In addition, they discuss the value of shared cognition and provide

recommendations for future research.

We would like to thank Crisitina Gibson, Florian Jentsch, Joan Johnston, James Gualtiera, Paul

Sweeney, Don Davis, Kyle Lewis, Jennifer Fowlkes, Nancy Cooke, Michelle Marks, Kim Jentsch,

Marv Cohen, Daniel Serfaty, Robert Hoffman, Stanley Gully, David Baker, Bob McIntyre, Tonia

Heffner, Dick Moreland, Steve Fiore, John Mathieu, Lori Levesque, Tim Goldsmith, Dianna Stone,

Rich Klimoski, Katherine Kline, David Hofmann, Scott Tannenbaum, Debra Major, Eric Sundstrom,

Michael Ensley, Allison Pearson, Susan Jackson, Steve Kozlowski, Fran Yammarino, Clint Bowers,

Donald Miles, Joan Rentsch, Susan Mohammed, Verlin Hinsz, Jim Driskell, and Bob Swezey.

Finally, within this issue we have provided a forum through which those who are on the cutting edge

of research and theory in shared cognition can deliver the lessons learned and the challenges remaining

in both understanding and promotion of shared cognition. It is our hope that the propositions, issues,

and thinking presented within this issue will serve both the reassert and practitioner communities in

further development of hypotheses and empirical studies regarding the unanswered questions.

References

Cannon-Bowers J, Salas E, Converse S. 1993. Shared mental models in expert team decision making. In Individualand Group Decision Making: Current Issues, Castellan NJ. Jr. (ed.). LEA: Hillsdale, NJ; 221±246.

Klimoski R, Mohammed S. 1994. Team mental model: construct or metaphor? Journal of Management 20:403±437.

88 E. SALAS AND J. A. CANNON-BOWERS

Copyright # 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Organiz. Behav. 22, 87±88 (2001)