| Organizations are increasingly relying on work teams to address a variety of complex and difficut tasks, and the integration of the heterogeneous and complementary knowledge, skills and expertises existing on the teams become one of the main topics in team effectiveness research. We confirmed three theoretical issues unresolved:①In heterogeneous teams, how do the members distribute work and coordinate to accomplish team goals with great discrepancies in demographic characteristics, educational background and work values?②What roles are transactive memeory systems(TMSs) and conflicts in knowledge integration? Are they effective?③Are the mechanisms of knowledge integration various in accordance with the complexity and interdependence of tasks? Three studies were conducted to uncover the causality and mechanisms of team knowledge integration, as well as the impact of task characteristics on knowledge integration.Study 1 explored the existence of TMS and its impact on a team under task execution. We thoroughly analyzed the creation and development of a TMS between globally distributed teams in Hangzhou and Boston, during the process of software development and implementation, and overcame the difficulties to integrate knowledge efficiently.①We verified the existence of a TMS in reality.②We investigated the TMS's impact on the knowledge transfering process between the distributed teams. The results showed that the TMS enhanced knowledge integration and played a critical role to team effectiveness.③We noticed that the project manager in Hangzhou intended to employ members with variou backgroud and urged their heedful interactions, and innovative ideas created to meet the clients' requirements. This suggested that team heterogenity could have influence on members' interation process and team outcome.Study 2 analyzed the mediating effect of a TMS as a mechanism of team knowledge integration.①By comparison among three alternative models created with structural equation modeling, we found the model that TMS acting as a total mediator the most optimal. This reflected TMS's mediating role between team heterogenity and effectiveness: Members' various backgrouds in education and work experiences are the antecedents that influence team outcome through TMS, and the path was evident as "expertise heterogenity-TMS-team effectiveness".②We found no direct relationship of expertise diversity and team effectiveness, and demographic heterogenity was negatively related to team effectiveness without the impact of TMS.③Same as we predicted, TMS was significantly related to team effectiveness.Study 3 analyzed the model of knowledge integration on heterogeneous teams and the effects of moderating factors.①By multivariate regression analysis, we found members' similarity in work values significantly enhanced TMS.②Members' diversity in demographic characteristics and expertise were positively related to task conflict, and work value similarity was negatively related. But all these had no significant impacts on relational conflict.③Team members' similarity in work value was directly linked with team outcome, together with indirect impacts through TMS and task conflict.④Relational and task conflicts had negative impacts on credibility and coordination of TMS respectively.⑤Task conflict had signifieantly negative impact on team performance and members' satisfaction, and the impact of relational conflict was not significant.⑥By hierachical multivariate regression, we found the obvious moderating effects of task characteristics: The significant relationship between TMS and team outcome was not significant any more, and the impact of relational conflict became significant. The negative impact of task conflict became much greater.Finally, we summarized the main conclusions, theoritical progresses, practical implications and research limitations. Future directions on team research were also provided.
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