Information sharing is very critical in determining if the team is going to reach the performance stage. If information is bottle up at the top or in various segment of the organization there can be serious repercussion. "Telephone interviews were conducted with 104 senior executives involved in the management of marketing communications at large Canadian corporations (1,000 employees and more). Close to three-quarters (73%) of respondents said that dividing communications activities into "silos" (isolation) within their corporations often or very often results in poor information sharing between teams (Kucharsky 2002).".
According to Bunderson and Sutcliffe, information related to both internal and external issues is unequally distributed among team members (given the division of labor and accountability), their ability and willingness to continually share pertinent information is critical if the team is to make decisions and take actions that appropriately address the range of relevant factors (2002). Therefore every person on the team should be responsible for keeping the others up to date with what is going on concerning their part of the process. Team members must see themselves as vital part to the teams overall success.
Bunderson and Sutcliffe (2002) also stated,.
In the case of information sharing, these questions can be framed as follows: (1) If I share information with my fellow team members about activities and developments in my area, will they understand me? (expectancy), (2) If my team members understand activities and developments in my area, will it help us to perform better as a team/organization? (instrumentality), and (3) Do I value performing better as a team/ organization? (valence). .
Team members must experience levels of expectancy, instrumentality and valence if information will be shared in an appropriate fashion. Management should strive to ensure that these levels are accessible to each member.
