How the Network Position of R&D Team Managers and Members Affects their Evaluations of Creative Performance

Abstract

Monitoring the creative performance of R&D teams as the nucleus of creating new knowledge is inherently difficult. In most cases, only the team managers and team members can be tapped as reliable sources of information. However, there are indications that neither team managers nor team members provide a sufficient introspection to evaluate the R&D team's creative performance. This contradiction was investigated in 51 R&D teams by examining the team managers' and members' network position and their resulting performance evaluations. The central findings of the study are that team managers and members evaluate the creative performance of their R&D teams more negatively when the amount and variety of information they are supplied are insufficient and that there are no relevant differences between team managers' and team members' evaluations or network positions.