| In a new competitive landscape featured by rapid technological change and globalization, innovation in the form of new products and processes has become increasingly important as a way for companies to achieve and maintain a competitive advantage. Team, as the elementary unit of enterprises, is prevalently adopted to carry on technological innovation activities, because it enables converge of the wisdom of professionals and technicians to better accomplish innovative task than individual efforts. Individual creativity, which can be seen as a way of individuals to generate novel and appropriate ideas, processes and solutions at work, generally provides a starting point of team innovation. Although the success of team innovation is to some degree determined by multiple factors, innovation is usually rooted in the creative individual employees. However, innovation failure experienced by many teams brings new challenges to management practices. For instance, large scale failure in team innovative projects in Nortel and Motorola due to lack of quick and accurate response to environmental change, leads to less competitiveness of their products and services and finally the collapse of these famous high-tech enterprises or being acquired by other companies. Thus, how to effectively manage teams and team members to improve team innovation and individual creativity becomes a very important and urgent issue.Team innovation proceeds in the social interaction process of team members. Team innovation performance depends on the integration of team members’ intelligence and social resources. Human capital reflects the stock of students’ knowledge acquired from education and learning and the “specific knowledge†and “creative thinking skills†that are necessary for innovation, while social capital providing flexible channel for knowledge sharing and exchange. Thus, human capital and social capital, as two important kinds of intangible capital of team, have significant influence on team performance. Secondly, team innovation, as an explorative process through continuously learning, contains uncertainty and ambiguity in terms of inevitable mistakes, errors even failures. As a specific form of experience learning, team learning from mistakes not only helps teams quickly react to the changing environment, but also effectively coordinates team members’ behavior. Thirdly, team identification and individual differentiation embody different cognitive processes. Team members are expected to have common identifications while appreciating individual identification to some extent. That is, encouraging team member to express himself meanwhile strengthening the team’s cohesion contribute to team innovation and constraint adherence.Based on literature review, three theoretical issues were confirmed to be resolved(1) how did team members’ individual human capital and social ties influence their creativity through knowledge sharing?(2)whatwas team human capital dimension structure and how to measure?how did team human capital and social capital influence team innovation performance through team learning from mistakes?(3)what role did team identification and individual differentiation played in the relationship between team human capital, social capital and innovation performance. To answer these questions, three studies were conducted with a sample of 585 leader-follower dyads from 151 teams.Study 1 explored a multi-level model involving direct and interactive influence of individual human capital, social ties and team learning from mistakes on team member’s creativity. Based on theoretical analysis, team learning from mistakes, individual human capital and social ties were supposed to influence employees’ knowledge sharing and creativity. Results of hierarchical linear modeling indicated that,(1) both the employee’s general human capital and specific human capital had significant positive affects on knowledge sharing and creativity.(2) knowledge sharing partially mediated relationships between employee’s general human capital, specific human capital, instrumental ties, expressive ties and creativity.(3) team learning from mistakes significantly influenced team members’ knowledge sharing and creativity, and strengthened the positive effects of individual human capital and social ties on creativity and the positive effects of individual speci?c human capital and instrumental ties on knowledge sharing. However, the results didn’t show that team learning from mistakes moderated the relationship between general human capital, expressive ties and knowledge sharing.Study 2 focused on influences of team human capital and social capital on team innovative performance and the interactive and mediating mechanics in the relationships. Based on theoretical analysis, it was supposed that team human capital and social capital had direct and interactive effects on team innovative performance, and team learning from mistakes mediatied relationships between team human capital, social capital and innovative performance. Results of structural equation modeling revealed that,(1) team social capital was constructed by three dimensions as structural capital, cognitive capital and relational capital.(2) team general human capital, specific human capital, structural capital, cognitive capital and relational capital had significant positive affects on both team innovation and constraint adherence.(3) team learning from mistakes partially mediatied relationships between team general human capital, specific human capital, structural capital, cognitive capital and team innovation and constraint adherence, while fully mediating relationships between team relational capital and team innovation and constraint adherence.(4) team human capital and social capital had positive interactive effects on team innovation and constraint adherence. Among which, the interactive effect of team human capital and social capital on team innovation was more significant than that on constraint adherence.Study 3 explored the moderating role of team identification and individual differentiation in the relationship between team human capital, social capital and team innovative performance. Results of hierarchical regression analysis showed that,(1) relationships between team specific human capital, structural capital and team innovation and that between team general human capital, specific human capital and constraint adherence were positively moderated by team identification. However, the moderating effects of team identification on the relationships between team general human capital, cognitive capital, relational capital and team innovation and that between structural capital, cognitive capital, relational capital and constraint adherence were not supported.(2) individual differentiation positively moderated the relationship between team general human capital, specific human capital, structural capital and team innovation. However, the moderating effects of individual differentiation on the relationships between team cognitive capital, relational capital and team innovation and that between team human capital, social capital and constraint adherence were not supported.(3) Results showed that, there was a three-way interaction between team identification, individual differentiation and specific human capital in explaining team innovation, while a three-way interaction betweenteam identification, individual differentiation and structural capital also influencing it. In explaining constraint adherence, there were also three-way interactions among team identification and individual differentiation with specific human capital, structural capital and relational capital respectively. However, the three-way interactions among team identification and individual differentiation with general human capital, cognitive capital and relational capital respectively in explaining team innovation were not supported; neither were the three-way interactions among team identification and individual differentiation with general human capital and cognitive capital respectively in explaining constraint adherence.The main contribution of the dissertation include:(1)Based on cross-level analysis perspective, The cross-level effects of team learning from mistakes were explored.Team learning from mistakes was focused as a team contextual factor improving knowledge sharing and team members’ creativity. The research indicated that team learning from mistakes had significant impact on knowledge sharing and team members’ creativity. Besides, team learning from mistakes had varying degrees of cross-level moderating effects on the relationship between team members’ individual human capital, social ties and knowledge sharing and team members’ creativity. However, it was not supported that team learning from mistakes moderated the relationship between general human capital, expressive ties and knowledge sharing, which showed that at different levels of team learning from mistakes, team members’ individual human capital and social ties had different effects on knowledge sharing and creativity. This result contributed not only to understanding the cross-level effect of team learning from mistakes, but also to learn about the promotion mechanics of team members’ knowledge sharing and creativity from a cross-level perspective. The study provided new perspective and meaningful exploration to effectively manage the team and improve team members’ creativity both theoretically and practically.(2) The interaction and mediating mechanism that influence team innovative performance were explored and extended in the view of human capital and social capital.How do team human capital and social capital influence team innovative performance? Results indicated that team learning from mistakes was an important mediator in the relationship between team human capital, social capital and innovative performance. As a specific form of experiential learning, learning from mistakes was critical for improving team innovative performance. In addition, team learning from mistakes was a team process according to IPO model. Team human capital and social capital, being inputted in this process, affected team innovative performance, which is the output, through team learning process from mistakes. Team human capital and social capital were found to have positive interactive effects on innovative performance. The results extended understanding of the interactive mechanism of human capital and social capital on team innovation with empirical evidence. Also, it promoted a change from single angle to synthesized perspective in team capital research, in turn provided a new way of team and individuals’ innovation research.(3)An integrated influence mechanism of team identification and individual differentiation on team innovative performancewere tested and extended.Team identification and individual differentiation were both involved in the study as two different cognitive processes. The three-way interaction of these two cognitive processes, human capital and social capitalwere especially emphasized. It was confirmed that, team identification and individual differentiation moderated the relationship between team human capital, social capital and team innovative performance both separately and jointly. The results shed light on the “diversity of values†in R&D teams, which made it possible to coordinate expression of individuality and formation of social identification. This complementary effect of team identification and individual differentiation extended the understanding of relationship between identification and innovation in current literature.
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