Exploring compatible and incompatible transactions in teams

Abstract

This paper reports on an exploratory study which set out to explore the role of compatible and incompatible transactions, assimilation, accommodation and contention scheduling in teams by applying schema theory to team communications. Schema theory and in particular the notions of contention scheduling, schema-driven errors and the perceptual cycle model, supports the ideas presented in the distributed situation awareness approach by explaining the way in which previous experience and knowledge amassed by each team member shape their interactions with the world. Understanding the role of schemas and the perceptual cycle model is necessary if the phenomenon of situation awareness is to be exploited positively in the organisation of teams, work and design of socio-technical systems. The findings indicate that team members influence each other’s schemata and that where opposing ideas, or schemata, with regard to what the team ought to do, a process of contention scheduling was applied to establish agreement on a common goal. Team members’ schemata were adapted by the mechanisms of assimilation and accommodation. Schemata were altered as a result of interaction between team members, e.g. their transactions, where each team member tested their ideas on the wider team, thus further developing their understanding of the external environment. These findings indicate that the perceptual cycle model can be scaled up to explain team’s dynamic exploration of, interaction with and adaptation to their environment. Schemata should therefore be explored along with the transactional SA and compatible SA in explaining the emergence of distributed SA in teams.