How to Translate Creative Ideas into Innovation?Differential Resources for Proactive and Responsive Team Idea Generation

Abstract

ABSTRACT A core challenge for team innovation is the successful translation of creative ideas into innovation through implementation. This study examines the tension between internal and external team resourcing behaviors that account for how teams translate their creative ideas into implemented innovation. Drawing on conservation of resource theory, we propose that motivational underpinnings of team idea generation predict team resourcing behaviors that directly affect team innovation implementation. Path analysis of a field survey data collected from 91 teams showed that teams that generated creative ideas proactively for internal interest effectively utilized internal resources but failed to acquire external resources for innovation implementation. By contrast, teams that generated ideas in response to external demands effectively acquired external resources but encountered diminished internal resources. These unbalanced resourcing patterns were partially resolved by team leadership, such that the negative indirect effect of responsive idea generation on innovation implementation via reduced internal resource utilization disappeared when internal-integration leadership was high. This study offers new theoretical insights into the transition between idea generation and implementation by identifying tension between teams’ internal and external resources as the core intermediating mechanism.