A Text-Based Measure of Transactive Memory System Strength

Abstract

We develop a method to assess the three indicators of transactive memory systems (TMS)—specialization, credibility, and coordination—through computer-aided text analysis. First, human coders assessed group transcripts for phrases representative of these indicators. From those phrases, we identified words that occurred frequently to develop a dictionary of TMS indicators. In total, we analyzed 262 groups composed of 1,091 individuals. Both the human-coded and dictionary-based assessments of TMS indicators are significantly related to a popular survey-based assessment of TMS. Our approach could be used to advance understanding of TMS by analyzing it in contexts where administering surveys is not feasible.