Student Team Creativity in Information System Development: Social Capital Perspective

Abstract

Creative teams can help software companies to grow and to obtain advantage. It is important for contemporary educational units to increase student team creativity in information system development and provide training for student teams to product creative results. A survey design was selected to collect data and test the proposed model. Thirty-six teams (204 students) enrolling in an information system department project training course that required three semesters of project-based lessons were investigated. To test our specific hypotheses, Partial least squares method was used. This study analyzes the creativity of student teams participating in an information system development project and examines antecedents of their creativity. The results find structural and relational capital positively influence knowledge sharing. Cognitive capital negatively influences knowledge sharing. And knowledge sharing positively affects team creativity. This study also demonstrates that knowledge sharing significantly mediates the effect of social capital on team creativity. Whilst this study explores issues in team creativity for information systems development student teams, some suggestions are made for educational designers using similar activities in other disciplines. Educational designers should define clear work processes for information system development student teams establish explicit functional role and division of labor for team members, and design information system development activities/tasks that require interactions among team members.