Offshoring Of Legal Specialized Knowledge 4

So what can we do about “sticky” opaque legal knowledge that is embodied
in lawyers in the area of knowledge and is thus difficult to transfer between
distributed teams? A Transactive Memory System (TMS) has been defined
as the combination of individual memory systems and communications (also
3 Huber, G. P. (1991), “Organizational learning: The contributing processes and the literatures,”
Organization Science, 2 (1): 88–115.
Vol. 1 CARMONA TJP LEGAL ASSISTANCE SERVICES Art. 007
Copyright © 2014 CARMONA TJP LEGAL ASSISTANCE SERVICES All rights reserved.
Unless otherwise indicated, all materials on these pages are copyrighted by the CARMONA TJP LEGAL
ASSISTANCE SERVICES. All rights reserved. No part of these pages, either text or image may be used
for any purpose other than personal use. Therefore, reproduction, modification, storage in a retrieval system
or retransmission, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical or otherwise, for reasons other than
personal use, is strictly prohibited without prior written permission.
3
referred to as “transactions”) between individuals. The TMS concept
developed by Wegner (1987)4 has been extensively used to examine
knowledge transfer between individuals. A group level TMS consists of
individuals using each other as a memory source. Three processes are
involved in transactions between individuals: encoding, storing, and
retrieving. Individuals encode information for storing and retrieving in a
similar way that a librarian enters details of a new book in a particular
library system before putting it on the shelves. The TMS processes of
encoding, storing and retrieval also have been explained through directory
updating, information allocation, and retrieval coordination (successively).
Directory updating is associated with learning who knows what. Information
allocation is about allocating information to the relevant experts for
processing and storage. Retrieval coordination referrers to retrieving
uniquely stored information for task performance purposes.