How Interacting Groups Remember: Implications for Learning by Groups in Organizations

Remembering and learning by groups in organizations involves a number of complex challenges. Group remembering encompasses all of the memory processes associated with individuals as well as the social processes involved with collaboration. To guide our review, we explore the roles that cognitive, social, and motivational processes play in group remembering. Additionally, contexts have dramatic influences on group remembering and learning. Thus, we consider how task, group composition, and organizational characteristics impact the processes of group remembering and its vital functions for learning in groups. Shared cognitive representations emerge as key constructs in this research and reflect the combined cognitive-social-motivational processes applicable to many contexts. Throughout this chapter, we rely upon organizational examples of group remembering and learning in groups. We conclude that a critical factor that differentiates effective from ineffective groups in organizations is a group’s willingness to remember and learn from its experiences.