The linkage between cognitive diversity and team innovation: Exploring the roles of team humor styles and team emotional intelligence via the conservation of resources theory

Researchers have displayed considerable interest in how and when team cognitive diversity leads to improved or impaired team innovation. When addressing this issue, scholars have adopted the information/decision making and social categorization theoretical perspectives. In contrast, we draw on conservation of resources (COR) theory when examining the cognitive diversity and team innovation relationship. We argue that in a team environment, cognitive diversity may result in the threat of losing valuable resources. This threat, in turn, encourages team members to engage in resource replenishment through the use of different humor styles (i.e., affiliative, self-enhancing, aggressive, self-defeating). We argue that, with such resource replenishment, four team-level humor styles emerge and mediate the relationship between cognitive diversity and team innovation. In addition, we expect team emotional intelligence to moderate the relationships between cognitive diversity and team humor styles. Our model has important theoretical implications for team diversity, humor, emotional intelligence, and innovation research.

Plain language summary

Team cognitive diversity can be defined as the extent to which team members differ in their ideas, perspectives, or values. Cognitive diversity is important for teams to cultivate innovation although it may also result in relationship conflicts and the formation of subgroups in a team. Our paper views cognitive diversity as a signal that drives team members to use humor to cope with diversity. This may then result in different humor styles (i.e., affiliative, self-enhancing, aggressive, self-defeating) that characterize the way the team uses humor. For instance, while working in a cognitively diverse team, team members might make a joke about work that the whole team laughs together (i.e., affiliative humor). However, some members might use sarcasm to insult others who are different from the group norms (i.e., aggressive humor). We argue that the team humor styles will influence team innovation, which in turn will link cognitive diversity with team innovation. Moreover, we suggest that team emotional intelligence will influence the extent to which the four team humor styles link cognitive diversity and team innovation.

Time to go wild: How to conceptualize and measure process dynamics in real teams with high-resolution

Team processes are interdependent activities among team members that transform inputs into outputs, vary over time, and are critical for team effectiveness. Understanding the temporal dynamics of team processes and related team phenomena with a high-resolution lens (i.e., methods with high sampling rates) is particularly challenging when going “into the wild” (i.e., studying teams operating in their full situated context). We review quantitative field studies using high-resolution methods (e.g., video, chat/text data, archival, wearables) and map out the various temporal lenses for studying team dynamics. We synthesize these different lenses and present an integrated temporal framework that is of help in theorizing about team dynamics. We also provide readers with a “how to” guide that summarizes four essential steps along with analytical methods (e.g., sequential and pattern analyses, mixed-methods research, abductive reasoning) that are applicable to the broad scope of high-resolution methods.

An Introduction to Video Methods in Organizational Research

Video has become a methodological tool of choice for many researchers in social science, but video methods are relatively new to the field of organization studies. This article is an introduction to video methods. First, we situate video methods relative to other kinds of research, suggesting that video recordings and analyses can be used to replace or supplement other approaches, not only observational studies but also retrospective methods such as interviews and surveys. Second, we describe and discuss various features of video data in relation to ontological assumptions that researchers may bring to their research design. Video involves both opportunities and pitfalls for researchers, who ought to use video methods in ways that are consistent with their assumptions about the world and human activity. Third, we take a critical look at video methods by reporting progress that has been made while acknowledging gaps and work that remains to be done. Our critical considerations point repeatedly at articles in this special issue, which represent recent and important advances in video methods.