From social identity to team performance: Linking transactive memory systems and teamwork

Cultivating a shared team identity fosters individuals' sense of belonging and strengthens their connection to the team. Previous studies have demonstrated that having a shared team identity and strongly identified individuals within the group are associated with various positive outcomes. Among these positive outcomes, increasing evidence from the organizational field suggests that a shared identity may serve as a foundational mechanism in the emergence of transactive memory systems (TMS). TMS refers to shared cognitive structures that enable team members to encode, store, and retrieve information collectively. The main objective of this study was to examine the relationship between team identification and transactive memory systems, as well as to investigate their effects on teamwork behaviors and overall performance of sport teams in unique tournament settings. A 3-wave longitudinal research design was employed to examine these associations, involving 167 athletes across 15 teams. Structural equation modelling indicated a significant relationship between team identification and transactive memory systems in the pre-tournament phase. Furthermore, pre-tournament transactive memory systems predicted teamwork behaviors during the tournament, positively influencing overall team performance. Our exploratory findings underscore how the short duration and high-pressure nature of the tournament differentially shaped teams' adaptive responses. Specifically, only mid-ranking teams showed significant improvements in adjustment behaviours from pre-tournament to mid-tournament, whereas both lower- and higher-ranking teams exhibited non-significant change. Based on these findings, to optimize a team's performance in a time-limited context such as tournaments, sport psychologists and coaches are encouraged to cultivate a shared team identity through social identity focused workshops or identity leadership interventions, and social activities with a heightened sense of psychological safety (e.g. open discussions for role clarity), which can develop transactive memory systems and, in turn, enhance teamwork behaviors and overall team performance. Consequently, the present study aims to adopt a collective-cognitive approach to the link between social identity and team performance in a sporting context, and to shed light on how team functioning unfolds under time-constrained conditions.