Resolving the Conflict-creativity Tension in Functionally Diverse Innovation Teams

More and more organizations structure their innovation projects around functionally diverse teams. Why are some diverse teams more innovative than others? In my dissertation research, I investigate how cognitive diversity, conflict, and creativity affect the success of functionally-diverse innovation teams. Some research points to the importance of cognitive diversity for stimulating group creativity and innovation. Other researchers have shown that cognitive diversity leads to misunderstandings, tensions, and conflict that harm innovation. Thus, paradoxically, cognitive diversity both benefit and harm innovation processes through the opposing forcing of conflict and creativity. To provide insights for understanding and managing the conflict-creativity tension, I study functionally diverse innovation teams. Cognitive diversity based on functional training and experience is particularly interesting because it comprises differences in perspectives, goals, approaches, values, and language that are hard to reconcile. In three studies of functionally diverse innovation teams, I examine the effects of interpersonal creative processes, i.e., idea sharing and idea building, as well as conflict processes on innovation success. Furthermore, I investigate the relationship between interpersonal creative processes and conflict: when idea sharing and idea building can be stimulated or inhibited by conflict. To address these questions, I collect and analyze data from three different settings: interdisciplinary research groups, new product development teams in an integrated product development course, and teams developing entertainment and technology products. The first dissertation study shows that task conflict stimulates the interpersonal creative process of idea sharing in diverse groups only if work design and diversity salience are managed appropriately. Using field data from 148 researchers in 29 interdisciplinary research labs, I