Start Date
10-12-2017 12:00 AM
Description
Despite growing popularity in multidisciplinary teams, the question of whether expertise diversity helps or hinders team innovation remains unanswered. Some researchers see diversity as an informational resource that exposes a group to a large pool of knowledge, thereby fostering innovation. Other scholars have argued that diversity impedes the innovation process by diminishing a team’s ability to integrate its diverse knowledge. Thus, it is not clear how highly diverse teams are able to integrate their knowledge and, subsequently, innovate. Our paper focuses on this gap by conducting a case study of a digital innovation lab that will be followed by a questionnaire. Our preliminary findings show that neither of the two competing perspectives can explain the real-world phenomenon in isolation. The evidence reveals that the knowledge integration process is episodic. Further, our findings show that several social, structural, and communicational mechanisms internal and external to the teams contribute to this process.
Recommended Citation
Rahrovani, Yasser and Pinsonneault, Alain, "Expertise Diversity, Knowledge Integration, and Team Innovation" (2017). ICIS 2017 Proceedings. 4.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/icis2017/General/Presentations/4
Expertise Diversity, Knowledge Integration, and Team Innovation
Despite growing popularity in multidisciplinary teams, the question of whether expertise diversity helps or hinders team innovation remains unanswered. Some researchers see diversity as an informational resource that exposes a group to a large pool of knowledge, thereby fostering innovation. Other scholars have argued that diversity impedes the innovation process by diminishing a team’s ability to integrate its diverse knowledge. Thus, it is not clear how highly diverse teams are able to integrate their knowledge and, subsequently, innovate. Our paper focuses on this gap by conducting a case study of a digital innovation lab that will be followed by a questionnaire. Our preliminary findings show that neither of the two competing perspectives can explain the real-world phenomenon in isolation. The evidence reveals that the knowledge integration process is episodic. Further, our findings show that several social, structural, and communicational mechanisms internal and external to the teams contribute to this process.