How does functional diversity lead to team innovation? The roles of information elaboration and shared meta-knowledge
Summary
Optimal conditions for team innovation are critical for organizations to adapt to current fastpaced
market. This study examines the knowledge resources of teams, through investigating
how functional diversity leads to team innovation, through potential mediation of information
elaboration and moderation of shared meta-knowledge. The team level analysis conducted with
37 teams revealed a significant negative relationship between functional diversity and
information elaboration, and a significant positive relationship between information elaboration
and team innovation. However, the results do not show a mediating effect of information
elaboration or moderating effect of shared meta-knowledge. Additionally, at the individual
level, results show a significant relationship between shared meta-knowledge and team
innovation, mediated by information elaboration. The implications, regarding the variables that
reflect the knowledge integration perspective of team innovation, have been discussed to gain
a better understanding of an innovative team’s cognition and to guide future research. On a
practical level, teams are advised to incorporate information elaboration as a tangible step into
innovation processes, highlight pro-diversity beliefs and contributions by each subgroup to
minimize negative effects of functional diversity and support development of shared metaknowledge
within the team.