Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T10:53:46.642Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Team diversity, mood, and team creativity: The role of team knowledge sharing in Chinese R & D teams

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 November 2015

Chaoying Tang
Affiliation:
Eberhardt School of Business, University of the Pacific, Stockton, CA, USA
Stefanie E. Naumann*
Affiliation:
Eberhardt School of Business, University of the Pacific, Stockton, CA, USA
*
Corresponding author: snaumann@pacific.edu

Abstract

Research on the team diversity-team creativity relationship has been mixed. We present and empirically examine a model of mediated moderation in which team knowledge sharing intervenes in the impact of the interaction of team work value diversity and positive mood on team creativity. Survey participants included 458 employees working in 47 R&D teams from 17 research institutes in China. The interaction of team work value diversity and team positive mood positively affected team creativity and was mediated by team knowledge sharing. Our findings suggest that knowledge sharing and positive mood are necessary to facilitate the positive link between value diversity and creativity; otherwise, diversity can have negative effects on creativity. Thus, value diversity, mood, and knowledge sharing should be considered in the formation, training, and performance evaluation of teams.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press and Australian and New Zealand Academy of Management 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aiken, L. S., & West, S. G. (1991). Multiple regression: Testing and interpreting interactions. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Barsade, S. G. (2002). The ripple effect: Emotional contagion and its influence on group behavior. Administrative Science Quarterly, 47, 644675.Google Scholar
Barsade, S. G., & Gibson, D. E. (2012). Group affect: Its influence on individual and group outcomes. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 21(2), 119123.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bock, G. W., Lee, J. N., Zmud, R. W., & Kim, Y. G. (2005). Behavioral intention formation in knowledge sharing: Examining the roles of extrinsic motivators, social-psychological forces, and organizational climate. MIS Quarterly, 29, 87111.Google Scholar
Bowers, C., Pharmer, J. A., & Salas, E. (2000). When member homogeneity is needed in work teams: A meta-analysis. Small Group Research, 31, 305327.Google Scholar
Brewer, M. B., & Kramer, R. M. (1986). Choice behavior in social dilemmas: Effects of social identity, group size, and decision framing. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 50, 543549.Google Scholar
Byrne, D. E. (1971). The attraction paradigm (Vol. 11). New York, NY: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Campos, J. J., Campos, R. G., & Barrett, K. C. (1989). Emergent themes in the study of emotional development and emotion regulation. Developmental Psychology, 25(3), 394402.Google Scholar
Carmeli, A., Gelbard, R., & Reiter-Palmon, R. (2013). Leadership, creative problem-solving capacity, and creative performance: The importance of knowledge sharing. Human Resource Management, 52, 95121.Google Scholar
Collins, A. L., Lawrence, S. A., Troth, A. C., & Jordan, P. J. (2013). Group affective tone: A review and future research directions. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 34, S43S62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Curral, L. A., Forrester, R. H., Dawson, J. F., & West, M. A. (2001). It’s what you do and the way that you do it: Unit task, unit size, and innovation-related group processes. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 10, 187204.Google Scholar
Dahlin, K. B., Weingart, L. R., & Hinds, P. J. (2005). Team diversity and information use. The Academy of Management Journal, 48, 11071123.Google Scholar
Ekman, P. (1992). An argument for basic emotions. Cognition and Emotion, 6, 169200.Google Scholar
Efron, B., & Tibshirani, R. (1993). An introduction to the bootstrap. New York: Chapman & Hall.Google Scholar
Fredrickson, B. L. (1998). What good are positive emotions? Review of General Psychology, 2, 300319.Google Scholar
Frijda, N. H., & Mesquita, B. (1994). The social roles and functions of emotions. In S. Kitayama, & H. Marcus (Eds.), Emotion and culture: Empirical studies of mutual influence (pp 5187). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.Google Scholar
George, J. M. (1990). Personality, affect, and behavior in groups. Journal of Applied Psychology, 75, 107116.Google Scholar
George, J. M., & Brief, A. P. (1992). Feeling good-doing good: A conceptual analysis of the mood at work-organizational spontaneity relationship. Psychological Bulletin, 112(2), 310329.Google Scholar
Gilson, L. L., Lim, H., Luciano, M. M., & Choi, J. (2013). Unpacking the cross-level effects of tenure diversity, explicit knowledge, and knowledge sharing on individual creativity. Journal of Occupational & Organizational Psychology, 86(2), 203222.Google Scholar
Harrison, D. A., & Klein, K. J. (2007). What’s the difference? Diversity constructs as separation, variety, or disparity in organizations. Academy of Management Review, 32, 11991228.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harrison, D. A., Price, K. H., & Bell, M. P. (1998). Beyond relational demography: Time and the effects of surface- and deep-level diversity on work group cohesion. Academy of Management Journal, 41(1), 96107.Google Scholar
Harrison, D. A., Price, K. H., Gavin, J. H., & Florey, A. T. (2002). Time, teams, and task performance: Changing effects of surface- and deep-level diversity on group functioning. Academy of Management Journal, 45(5), 10291045.Google Scholar
Hazan, C., & Shaver, P. R. (1994). Attachment as an organizational framework for research on close relationships. Psychological Inquiry, 5(1), 122.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hentschel, T., Shemla, M., Wegge, J., & Kearney, E. (2013). Perceived diversity and team functioning: The role of diversity beliefs and affect. Small Group Research, 21(2), 119123.Google Scholar
Hobman, E. V., Bordia, P., & Gallois, C. (2004). Perceived dissimilarity and work group involvement: The moderating effects of group openness to diversity. Group & Organization Management, 29, 560587.Google Scholar
Hou, J. T., Wen, Z. L., & Cheng, Z. J. (2004). Structural equation model and its application. Beijing: Education Science Press.Google Scholar
Hu, L. T., & Bentler, P. M. (1999). Cutoff criteria for fit indexes in covariance structure analysis: Conventional criteria versus new alternatives. Structural Equation Modeling: A Multidisciplinary Journal, 6(1), 155.Google Scholar
Huang, C. C. (2009). Knowledge sharing and group cohesiveness on performance: An empirical study of technology R&D Teams in Taiwan. Technovation, 29, 786797.Google Scholar
James, L. R., Demaree, R. G., & Wolf, G. (1993). An assessment of within-group inter rater agreement. Journal of Applied Psychology, 78, 306309.Google Scholar
Jehn, K. A., Northcraft, G. B., & Neale, M. A. (1999). Why differences make a difference: A field study of diversity, conflict, and performance in work groups. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44, 741763.Google Scholar
Joshi, A., & Roh, H. (2009). The role of context in work team diversity research: A meta-analytic review. Academy of Management Journal, 52(3), 599627.Google Scholar
Keltner, D., & Haidt, J. (1999). Social functions of emotions at four levels of analysis. Cognition & Emotion, 13(5), 505521.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kessel, M., Kratzer, J., & Schultz, C. (2012). Psychological safety, knowledge sharing, and creative performance in healthcare teams. Creativity and Innovation Management, 21, 147157.Google Scholar
Kim, E., Bhave, D. P., & Glomb, T. M. (2013). Emotion regulation in workgroups: The roles of demographic diversity and relational work context. Personnel Psychology, 66, 613644.Google Scholar
Kim, S. Y., Shin, Y., & Kim, M. S. (2013). Cross‐level interactions of individual trait positive affect, group trait positive affect, and group positive affect diversity. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 16(3), 197206.Google Scholar
Klinnert, M. D., Campos, J. J., Sorce, J. F., Emde, R. N., & Svejda, M. (1983). Emotions as behavior regulators: Social referencing in infancy. Emotion: Theory, Research and Experience, 2, 5786.Google Scholar
Kratzer, J., Gemunden, H. G., & Lettl, C. (2008). Balancing creativity and time efficiency in multi-team R&D projects: The alignment of formal and informal networks. R&D Management, 38(5), 538549.Google Scholar
Kurtzberg, T. R. (2005). Feeling creative, being creative: An empirical study of diversity and creativity in teams. Creativity Research Journal, 17, 5165.Google Scholar
Lehmann-Willenbrock, N., Meyers, R. A., Kauffeld, S., Neininger, A., & Henschel, A. (2011). Verbal interaction sequences and group mood: Exploring the role of team planning communication. Small Group Research, 42, 639668.Google Scholar
Liang, T., Wu, J., Jiang, J. J., & Klein, G. (2012). The impact of value diversity on information system development projects. International Journal of Project Management, 30, 731739.Google Scholar
Lopez-Cabrales, A., Pérez-Luño, A., & Cabrera, R. V. (2009). Knowledge as a mediator between HRM practices and innovative activity. Human Resource Management, 48, 485503.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mannix, E., & Neale, M. A. (2005). What differences make a difference? The promise and reality of diverse teams in organizations. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 6, 3155.Google Scholar
Milliken, F. J., & Martins, L. L. (1996). Searching for common threads: Understanding the multiple effects of diversity on organizational groups. Academy of Management Review, 21, 402433.Google Scholar
Muller, D., Judd, C. M., & Yzerbyt, V. Y. (2005). When moderation is mediated and mediation is moderated. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 89, 852863.Google Scholar
Oetzel, J. G. (1998). The effects of self-construals and ethnicity on self-reported conflict styles. Communication Reports, 11, 133144.Google Scholar
Pelled, L. H. (1996). Demographic diversity, conflict, and work group outcomes: An intervening process theory. Organization Science, 7, 615631.Google Scholar
Pelled, L. H., Eisenhardt, K. M., & Xin, K. (1999). Exploring the black box: An analysis of work group diversity, conflict, and performance. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44, 128.Google Scholar
Perry-Smith, J. E., & Shalley, C. E. (2003). The social side of creativity: A static and dynamic social network perspective. Academy of Management Review, 28, 89106.Google Scholar
Pirola-Merlo, A., Härtel, C., Mann, L., & Hirst, G. (2002). How leaders influence the impact of affective events on team climate and performance in R&D teams. The Leadership Quarterly, 13(5), 561581.Google Scholar
Rhee, S. Y. (2007). Group emotions and group outcomes: The role of group-member interactions. Research on Managing Groups and Teams, 10, 6595.Google Scholar
Richter, A. W., Hirst, G., Van Knippenberg, D., & Baer, M. (2012). Creative self-efficacy and individual creativity in teams: cross-level interactions with team informational resources. Journal of Applied Psychology, 97, 12821290.Google Scholar
Scherer, K. R., & Tran, V. (2001). Effects of emotion on the process of organizational learning. In M. Dierkes, J. Child, & I. Nonaka (Eds.), Handbook of organizational learning (pp. 369392). New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Schneider, B. (1983). Interactional psychology and organizational behavior. In Cummings, L., & Staw, B. (Eds.), Research in organizational behavior (pp. 131). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.Google Scholar
Sy, T., Choi, J. N., & Johnson, S. K. (2013). Reciprocal interactions between group perceptions of leader charisma and group mood through mood contagion. Leadership Quarterly , 24, 463476.Google Scholar
Tierney, P., & Farmer, S. M. (2002). Creative self-efficacy: Potential antecedents and relationship to creative performance. Academy of Management Journal, 45, 11371148.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van der Vegt, G. S., Bunderson, J. S., & Oosterhof, A. (2006). Expertness diversity and interpersonal helping in teams: Why those who need the most help end up getting the least. Academy of Management Journal, 49(5), 877893.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Knippenberg, D., De Dreu, C. K. W., & Homan, A. C. (2004). Work group diversity and group performance: An integrative model and research agenda. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89, 10081022.Google Scholar
Wang, S., & Noe, R. A. (2010). Knowledge sharing: A review and directions for future research. Human Resource Management Review, 20, 115131.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Watson, D., Clark, L. A., & Tellegen, A. (1988). Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: The PANAS Scales. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54(6), 10631070.Google Scholar
Woehr, D., Arciniega, L., & Poling, T. (2013). Exploring the effects of value diversity on team effectiveness. Journal of Business & Psychology, 28(1), 107121.Google Scholar
Zhou, J., & George, J. M. (2001). When job dissatisfaction leads to creativity: Encouraging the expression of voice. Academy of Management Journal, 44, 682696.Google Scholar