Abstract
Although having diverse knowledge and perspectives is considered crucial to team creativity and innovation, research examining diversity’s relationship to team creativity and innovation has been decidedly mixed. This meta-analysis examines diversity’s relationship to team creativity and innovation, and considers factors that may allow teams to more fully realize the potential benefits of diversity. Employing a knowledge integration perspective, we proposed that teams are likely to be more creative and innovative when team members offer a diverse set of informational resources and are structured in a way that motivates or enables them to integrate these resources. We tested our theoretical contentions with a random-effects meta-analysis of 156 independent samples. We found that diversity tends to have positive effects: teams with greater surface-level or deep-level diversity and those with more members tend to be more creative and innovative. We also identified important contingencies. For example, teams with greater racial/ethnic diversity or with more team members are more creative and innovative when they have experience working together (as opposed to when they are newly formed) or when they have a clear creativity goal (as opposed to when they do not). Finally, we found little difference in the relationships between various team factors such as surface-level diversity or size and team creativity or team innovation, supporting our combined use of these measures.
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