Integrating workplace meetings and team creative process literature: A multi-level perspective

Expanding existing meeting typologies, this paper introduces a model of the team creative process in meetings to better capture and study the full breath of meeting activity that results in creative outcomes. The primary goal of this work is to describe the processes that occur in the team creative process in meetings at the individual and team levels. A multi-level model that depicts the emergence of team creative cognitive processes from individual-level cognitions is presented. The nature of emergence of team creative processes is detailed. Research on creativity and meetings is integrated to better understand how meeting design characteristics influence creative output. This review of research is distilled to provide practical recommendations to best construct meetings to facilitate individual and team creativity. Additionally, the role of related team states in creative processes meetings is outlined. Finally, paths for future research on creativity in meetings are discussed.

Plain Language Summary

This article explores how individuals and teams think creatively in meetings. A model of meetings that have goals to produce creative outcomes is presented. The association between individual thinking processes and group thinking processes is presented alongside a discussion of relevant surrounding influences. Research on creative thinking and workplace meetings is used to better understand how meetings can be used to improve creativity. Practical recommendations to improve the production of creative outcomes in meetings are also provided.

The role of error risk taking and perceived organizational innovation climate in the relationship between perceived psychological safety and innovative work behavior: A moderated mediation model

To better understand how to motivate innovative work behavior (IWB) at the individual level in organizations, we investigate the link between perceived psychological safety and IWB and the role of error risk taking and perceived organizational innovation climate in this study. In particular, we hypothesize a moderated mediation model in which (a) perceived psychological safety is positively related to IWB, (b) error risk taking mediates the positive relationship between perceived psychological safety and IWB, and (c) perceived organizational innovation climate strengthens the positive link between error risk taking and IWB and the mediated link between perceived psychological safety and IWB via error risk taking. We tested the hypothesized model using data collected from 315 full-time employees working at six information and communication technology companies in a high-technology business district of Egypt. The findings largely support our hypotheses. We conclude by discussing the theoretical and practical implications.

Knowledge-oriented leadership, team learning and team creativity: the roles of task interdependence and task complexity

Purpose

Organizations is increasingly depending on team creativity to create a sustainable competitive advantage. The purpose of this study is to examine the relation between knowledge-oriented leadership and team creativity.

Design/methodology/approach

The hypotheses were tested with a sample of 89 knowledge worker teams consisting of 412 employees and employers in China.

Findings

Results show that knowledge-oriented leadership is positively associated with team creativity, mediated by team learning. Additionally, task interdependence and task complexity can strengthen the positive relation between team learning and team creativity.

Originality/value

The study is the first to explore the relation between knowledge-oriented leadership and team creativity and the moderating role of task interdependence and task complexity in the relation between team learning and team creativity.

Team characteristics and leadership training participation

Purpose

By relying on social learning theory, the authors aim to evaluate how team characteristics as evaluated by a team coach impact participation in leadership development program activities. Specifically, the authors hypothesize that teams with high levels of competence and social support would participate more team and program-wide training activities.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors examine 41 teams (266 participants) in a leadership development program and develop a two-by-two matrix to categorize teams based on their underlying characteristics for the purpose of identifying participation differences.

Findings

The mixed results indicate how team social support is a key driver for participation in team activities and how team competence is associated with less participation in program-wide activities in a leadership development program.

Practical implications

The results point to the importance of team characteristics when using teams for education and training programs such as leadership development programs. Team characteristics such as team competence and team social support should be considered when building teams and for team facilitation needs during education and training programs that implore teams to enhance learning.

Originality/value

Although the use of teams as an organizing strategy is popular, very little research has examined the effectiveness of this strategy by taking a deeper look at team characteristics and how these impact participation in a leadership development program.

The curvilinear relationship between team familiarity and team innovation: A secondary data analysis

Paradoxical arguments and mixed empirical evidence coexist in the current literature concerning the relationship between team familiarity and team innovation. To resolve this contradiction, we apply habitual routines theory to propose that team familiarity and team innovation have an inverted U-shaped relationship. Using a data set of 68,933 R&D teams in the electrical engineering industry, our results support a nonlinear relationship between team familiarity and team innovation, and suggest that the best innovative performance is produced by moderately familiar teams. Furthermore, we find that external learning can moderate this curvilinear relationship. Theoretical contributions and future implications are discussed.

Team Innovation

Team innovation is of growing importance in research in organizational psychology and organizational behavior as well as organizational practice. I review the empirical literature in team innovation to draw integrative conclusions about the state of the science and to provide a research agenda to move the field forward. The review identifies two main perspectives in team innovation research, the knowledge integration perspective and the team climate perspective. Key conclusions focus on the need to integrate these perspectives to develop an integrative contingency model of the factors providing teams with diverse informational resources and the factors influencing the extent to which teams integrate these resources in a process of information exchange and integration. As part of these integrative efforts, construct consolidation efforts are important to reverse the tendency for proliferation of substantially overlapping moderators and mediators proposed. The review also identifies the contingencies of the relationship between idea development and idea implementation as the most important understudied issue in team innovation research.

Knowing what we know differently

Purpose

Building on knowledge-based view and demographic diversity theory, the purpose of this paper is to re-conceptualize knowledge heterogeneity (KH) (i.e. diversity in individual or organizational knowledge) and to explore a broader set of relationships between KH and the multidimensional (i.e. dynamics and ambidexterity) innovation.

Design/methodology/approach

Case studies of organizational KH and innovation ambidexterity were conducted in four representative companies with variated characteristics. Similarities in the heterogeneity-innovation relationships were identified across four very different types of companies, providing a good exploratory base for future large-scale empirical studies.

Findings

Grounding on locus-of-knowing and timing-of-knowing dimensions, this paper utilizes an inductive approach that analyzes qualitative materials to construct the essential meanings of intraorganizational KH, and to explore the influences KH brings onto the ambidextrous innovation. A four-category typology of KH is emerged. Overall, KH is categorized into four distinctive but inter-related forms: individual professional backgrounds, collective profession backgrounds, individual evolving knowledge portfolio, and collective evolving knowledge portfolio.

Research limitations/implications

Building on such typology, this paper discusses propositions for the differentiated influences of different forms of KH on dynamic and ambidextrous innovations.

Originality/value

Whereas individual knowledge benefits independent creativity, complex collective knowledge is more critical for organizational innovation. While research has placed more emphasis on the effects of knowledge accumulation or flow, it neglects the knowledge profile and structure for innovation. The present study explores the effect of heterogeneous knowledge structure on dynamic and ambidextrous innovation.

Diversity and creativity in cross-national teams: The role of team knowledge sharing and inclusive climate

Diversity literature has demonstrated negative effects of surface-level diversity and positive effects of deep-level diversity. How do two types of diversity among cross national team members influence team knowledge sharing and team creativity? The purpose of this study is to explore conditions that leverage the positive and restrain the negative effects of team diversity on team knowledge sharing, which leads to team creativity. We expect inclusive climate as the significant condition and knowledge sharing as the profound intervening mechanism between team diversity and team creativity relationship. We tested the hypotheses with data from a sample of 60 cross-national research teams from several universities in China. The results support the hypothesized relationships among inclusive climate, team knowledge sharing, and team creativity. Our findings contribute to the advancement of team diversity and team creativity literature, and their theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Principal empowering leadership and teacher innovative behavior: a moderated mediation model

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to contribute to extant literature by linking principal empowering leadership to teachers’ innovative work behavior. By doing so, the author attempts to provide a more nuanced understanding of this relationship by examining a moderated mediation model which encompasses exploration as a mediator and role conflict as a moderator.

Design/methodology/approach

– Data were collected from 201 public teachers. In order to examine the present hypotheses bootstrapping analysis, Sobel test and SPSS macro were used.

Findings

– The results demonstrated that teacher exploration mediates the relationship between empowering leadership and innovative work behavior and, further, that this indirect effect is contingent on role conflict.

Practical implications

– Based on the present findings, in order to enhance innovation, schools need to promote both empowering leadership style and their teachers’ exploration. Moreover, principals should refrain from providing conflicting orders and expectations from their teachers because such conditions will eliminate the positive effect of their empowering behaviors on teachers’ exploration and innovative work behavior.

Originality/value

– This is the first study that develops and tests a moderated mediation model regarding the relationship between principal empowering leadership and teacher innovative behavior.

Impact of Team (Dis)satisfaction and Psychological Safety on Performance Evaluation Biases

Research on self-serving bias in teams has focused on bias after teams receive feedback. Many teams, however, work for extended periods of time before receiving feedback. This article proposes that team members exhibit biases prior to receiving feedback, depending on the level of team satisfaction. The results of two studies, one scenario study and one field study, demonstrate that members of unsatisfied teams make more self-serving claims about their contribution toward the team’s task. This bias, however, is eliminated in teams with strong psychological safety norms that make team members’ contributions more salient to one another. A surprising result, in our sample of ongoing teams, was that the most highly satisfied teams also demonstrated an other-centric bias—assigning more credit to other team members than to themselves.

When Accuracy Isn’t Everything

Information elaboration is the mechanism through which diverse group members share unique knowledge and perspectives to form better and more creative responses to tasks. However, little is known about the conditions under which group members will be willing and motivated to engage in information elaboration. This article presents a field study conducted in an energy company to investigate that issue. Regression analysis of survey responses suggests that group members who have deep, underlying differences in perspective from the group engage in less information elaboration, particularly if they perceive themselves as similar to the group. Recognizing deep-level differences is helpful, however, when an individual also differs from the group in surface-level characteristics, because those differences improve information elaboration. This finding suggests that surface-level diversity prompts group members to understand and appreciate their deep-level differences.

Knowledge Sharing in Teams

Sharing knowledge among team members is critical to accomplishing innovation. However, there are motivation and communication barriers to sharing knowledge in teams. In this study of 219 work teams, two mechanisms that have potential for encouraging knowledge sharing (social capital and extrinsic incentives) are examined as they relate to tacit knowledge sharing, explicit knowledge sharing, and team innovation. Tacit knowledge sharing mediated the relationships between cognitive social capital and team innovation as well as between explicit knowledge sharing and team innovation. Explicit knowledge sharing mediated the relationship between relational social capital and team innovation, while both forms of knowledge sharing mediated the relationship between extrinsic incentives for knowledge sharing and team innovation.