Team diversity as dissimilarity and variety in organizational innovation

Dong Huo; Kazuyuki Motohashi; Han Gong

doi:10.1016/j.respol.2019.03.020

Team diversity as dissimilarity and variety in organizational innovation

Dong Huo
, Kazuyuki Motohashi
, Han Gong^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

School of Economics and Management, Harbin Institute of Technology Shenzhen
The University of Tokyo
Shanghai University of Finance and Economics

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

43 Scopus citations

Abstract

How team composition exactly influences innovation outcomes remains a complex and unsolved puzzle in the literature on creativity and innovation. Our study differentiates two types of team technology-related diversity—technological dissimilarity and technological variety, and investigates their influences on the impact of an invention created by a team. Analyses of over half million U.S. utility patents in the 1991–2005 period invented by teams reveal that technological variety of team inventors has a positive effect on invention impact, and that technological dissimilarity between team inventors plays both positive and negative roles, eliciting an inverted U-shaped effect. In addition, we find that the positive effect of dissimilarity is significantly reduced after controlling for variety. Theoretical and practical implications of our findings are discussed.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	1564-1572
Number of pages	9
Journal	Research Policy
Volume	48
Issue number	6
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2019.03.020
State	Published - Jul 2019
Externally published	Yes

Keywords

Dissimilarity
Diversity
Knowledge availability
Knowledge utilization
Team composition
Team innovation
Variety

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10.1016/j.respol.2019.03.020

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title = "Team diversity as dissimilarity and variety in organizational innovation",

abstract = "How team composition exactly influences innovation outcomes remains a complex and unsolved puzzle in the literature on creativity and innovation. Our study differentiates two types of team technology-related diversity{\textemdash}technological dissimilarity and technological variety, and investigates their influences on the impact of an invention created by a team. Analyses of over half million U.S. utility patents in the 1991{\textendash}2005 period invented by teams reveal that technological variety of team inventors has a positive effect on invention impact, and that technological dissimilarity between team inventors plays both positive and negative roles, eliciting an inverted U-shaped effect. In addition, we find that the positive effect of dissimilarity is significantly reduced after controlling for variety. Theoretical and practical implications of our findings are discussed.",

keywords = "Dissimilarity, Diversity, Knowledge availability, Knowledge utilization, Team composition, Team innovation, Variety",

author = "Dong Huo and Kazuyuki Motohashi and Han Gong",

note = "Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2019 Elsevier B.V.",

year = "2019",

month = jul,

doi = "10.1016/j.respol.2019.03.020",

language = "英语",

volume = "48",

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T1 - Team diversity as dissimilarity and variety in organizational innovation

AU - Huo, Dong

AU - Motohashi, Kazuyuki

AU - Gong, Han

PY - 2019/7

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N2 - How team composition exactly influences innovation outcomes remains a complex and unsolved puzzle in the literature on creativity and innovation. Our study differentiates two types of team technology-related diversity—technological dissimilarity and technological variety, and investigates their influences on the impact of an invention created by a team. Analyses of over half million U.S. utility patents in the 1991–2005 period invented by teams reveal that technological variety of team inventors has a positive effect on invention impact, and that technological dissimilarity between team inventors plays both positive and negative roles, eliciting an inverted U-shaped effect. In addition, we find that the positive effect of dissimilarity is significantly reduced after controlling for variety. Theoretical and practical implications of our findings are discussed.

AB - How team composition exactly influences innovation outcomes remains a complex and unsolved puzzle in the literature on creativity and innovation. Our study differentiates two types of team technology-related diversity—technological dissimilarity and technological variety, and investigates their influences on the impact of an invention created by a team. Analyses of over half million U.S. utility patents in the 1991–2005 period invented by teams reveal that technological variety of team inventors has a positive effect on invention impact, and that technological dissimilarity between team inventors plays both positive and negative roles, eliciting an inverted U-shaped effect. In addition, we find that the positive effect of dissimilarity is significantly reduced after controlling for variety. Theoretical and practical implications of our findings are discussed.

KW - Dissimilarity

KW - Diversity

KW - Knowledge availability

KW - Knowledge utilization

KW - Team composition

KW - Team innovation

KW - Variety

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DO - 10.1016/j.respol.2019.03.020

M3 - 文章

AN - SCOPUS:85063632000

SN - 0048-7333

VL - 48

SP - 1564

EP - 1572

JO - Research Policy

JF - Research Policy

IS - 6

ER -

Team diversity as dissimilarity and variety in organizational innovation

Abstract

Keywords

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