Facilitating Innovation in Interdisciplinary Science Teams: The Role of Intergroup Leadership

Abstract

Inter-group leadership focuses on improving inter-group outcomes, such as innovation, that requires the integration of knowledge from two or more distinct working groups. Leadership efforts that are effective in intra-group contexts, such as creating a common identity, are problematic in inter-group contexts due to deep-rooted disciplinary differences in training, education, and conceptual frameworks. We study the impact of inter-group leader background and behavior on the knowledge integration and innovative performance of newly formed interdisciplinary medical science teams composed of diverse members who hail from disparate areas of knowledge and practice. We examine how the intrapersonal heterogeneity of an inter-group leader directly and indirectly affects the innovativeness of a science team through its moderating influence on team disciplinary diversity. We then identify, through an inductive observational study, the communication practices that intergroup leaders use to foster the integration and generation of knowledge. We focus both on characteristics of the leader and the processes of facilitating exchange and integration of knowledge between group members who represent distinct work and knowledge communities. We find that the intrapersonal heterogeneity of experience of inter-group leaders moderates the effect of team diversity on integration and innovation. Further, we find that inter-group leaders who used specific communication structuring behaviors aimed at addressing inconsistent cognitive frames and facilitating new knowledge creation led teams to higher levels of integration and innovation. Our findings highlight the importance of inter-group leadership on facilitating performance in interdisciplinary teams that require two or more groups to work collaboratively to achieve a common aim.