The Conditional Indirect Effects of Team Mean Harmonious vs. Obsessive Passion on Team Innovation

Abstract

Relying on the passion and team reflexivity literatures, we examine how team members’ mean passion for innovation is indirectly related to team innovation through their reflexivity as a team and how these indirect effects are strengthened or weakened when members are homogenous in terms of their passion intensity. We predict that the two kinds of passion—harmonious passion (HP), which stems from autonomously viewing innovation as important to one’s identity because of the characteristics of innovation itself, and obsessive passion (OP), which results from the internalization of innovation into one’s identity due to intrapersonal or interpersonal pressure that is uncontrollable—will show different patterns given their distinct nature and influences. The results from a two-wave field study of 131 teams and a three-wave field study of 155 teams consistently supported the differential effects. Specifically, we found that mean HP had a positive indirect relationship with team innovation via team reflexivity, and this indirect effect was more positive when HP diversity was lower rather than higher. On the other hand, the indirect mean OP on team innovation via reflexivity were less negative when OP diversity was higher rather than lower. Our study has important theoretical and practical implications for understanding the effect of passion on innovation in team contexts.