Antecedents And Mechanisms Of Creativity In Inter-organizational Teams

Firms increasingly pursue inter-organizational innovations based on inter-organizational teams to respond to internal resource scarce and external market changes. Inter-organizational team refers to a team which consists of diverse members from different organizations brought together to conduct an initiative. For example, Apple and Samsung have developed various R&D teams with their suppliers to create new products. IBM and Microsoft have created the inter-organizational teams with universities or research institutions to do fundamental research. Because of the diverse membership from different organizations, inter-organizational teams encounter their own set of unique difficulties, such as how to manage conflicts between different organizational cultures, to leader the decision process across organizational boundaries, and to deal with the cognitive challenges due to the diverse knowledge and ideas. These difficulties would affect the creativity of inter-organizational teams. Meanwhile, the multilevel theory of creativity suggests that the creative process of teams is a complex form including team creativity as well as individual creativity; and team creativity is not simply the average of individual creativity because that the transfer of individual creativity into team creativity needs social processes among team members. So far, few studies have investigated the antecedents and mechanisms of creativity in inter-organizational teams. In the context of inter-organziational teams, this research shall investigate the influencing mechanisms of team conflict, shared leadership, and zhong-yong thinking on team or individual creativity.We split our research problem into three sub-questions:the first concern is how team conflict affects team creativity in inter-organizational teams; the second concern is how shared leadership simultaneously affects team-and individual-level creativity in inter-organizational teams. The last concern is how zhong-yong thinking affects individual creativity in inter-organizational teams. First, we review the literature on the relevant constructs. Second, we elaborate the research design and data collection. Then, by using SPSS and HLM software, we analyze the included sample, and test the serial hypotheses. Lastly, we go a bit deeper in the discussion, and clarify the theoretical and practical implications of the fingdings. The main findings are as follows.First, we investigate the effect of team conflict on team creativity, and the moderating effect of shared leadership. We found that relationship conflict has negative relationship with team creativity, whereas task conflict has curvilinear (inverted-U shape) relationship with team creativity. Base on the contingency theory, we found the relationship between conflict and creativity can be influenced by team leadership. Specifically, we focus on the shared leadership, because asymmetric power in an inter-organizational relationship is critical to joint problem-solving. The findings show that shared leadership would moderate the linkage between conflict and creativity. When shared leadership is higher, the relationship between relationship conflict and team creativity is less negative. Moreover, when shared leadership is higher, intermediate task conflict would exhibit higher team creativity.Second, we investigate the simultaneous effect of shared leadership on team and individual creativity, and the moderating effect of task interdependence. We found that knowledge sharing can mediate the relationship between shared leadership and two types of creativity, and task interdependence can moderate the relationship between shared leadership and individual creativity, such that the higher the task interdependence, the more positive the relationship. In addition, task interdependence can moderate the relationship between knowledge sharing and two types of creativity, such that the higher the task interdependence, the more positive the relationship. The findings show that task interdependence can significantly moderate the relationship between knowledge sharing and team creativity, whereas task interdependence non-significantly moderate the relationship between knowledge sharing and individual creativity.Third, we investigate the effect of zhong-yong thinking on individual creativity, and the moderating effect of task interdependence. Based on the interactionist perspective of creativity, we argue that task interdependence can moderate the relationship between zhong-yong thinking and individual creativity. The findings demonstrate that task interdependence can positively moderate the relationship between zhong-yong thinking and individual creativity, such that the higher the task interdependence, the more positive the relationship. To further investigate the moderating mechanism of task interdependence, we found that knowledge sharing plays as a key mechanism through which task interdependence strengthens the impact of zhong-yong thinking on individual creativity, anmely, knowledge sharing can mediate the moderating effect of task interdependence on the relationship between zhong-yong thinking and individual creativity.The findings have some theoretical implications. First, we mainly investigate three important problems, namely, the influencing mechanisms of team conflict, shared leadership, and zhong-yong thinking on team or individual creativity, thereby enriching the literature on inter-orgnizational innovation. Second, this research extends the conflict literature. On the one hand, we investigate the conflict-creativity relationship in inter-organizational teams. On the other hand, we consider shared leadership as an important moderator in the conflict-creativity relationship. Third, this research extends the literature on shared leadership. On the one hand, we apply shared leadership to the inter-organizational team settings. On the other hand, we enrich the understandings on the multilevel effects of shared leadership on creativity. Last, this research extends the literature on zhong-yong thinking. On the one hand, we introduce the concept of zhong-yong thinking in the context of inter-organizational teams. On the other hand, we provide evidence that zhong-yong thinking as a cognitive style has significant influence on creativity.The findings of this study offer some practical guidance for the managers of inter-organizational teams. First, managers should monitor and intervene team conflict. For example, managers need to intervene and potentially act as conflict monitors to prevent the relationship conflict in inter-organizational teams. Moreover, managers should embrace the attitude that some degree of task conflict can be good, communicate this attitude to team members, and build communication channels through which partner teammates can voice and receive dissenting opinions. Second, managers should realize that shared leadership is important. For example, managers can encourage team members to engage in mutual influencing process, and collaborative decisions. Moreover, managers should consider task interdependence. When the level of shared leadership in the inter-organizational team is low, managers should make efforts to increase task interdependence. For example, managers can assign team tasks wherein individual task requires more collaboration and supports from partner members. Third, managers should foster team members’ zhong-yong thinking. For example, managers can encourage members to scrutinize different perspectives and to think more deeply, and to integrate others’ ideas. Moreover, we recommend that the relationship between zhong-yong thinking and creativity is not an isolated situation; and that managers should consider task interdependence. When team members’ zhong-yong thinking is low, managers should make efforts to increase the degree of task interdependence between partner members.