Will Goal Clarity Lower Team Innovation? An Organizational Learning Perspective

Abstract

Research has identified the positive effects of goal clarity and inter-team trust on team innovation separately. Departing from extant research, we examine the potential moderating effect of goal clarity on the relationship between inter-team trust and team innovation in this paper. Consistent with what we already know, we first argue that a team’s innovation increases when the team has a clear and specific goal, or when the team trusts its organizational peers. We specifical argue that trust facilitates knowledge acquisition from peer teams and the focal team uses this external knowledge to innovate. Relying on goal setting theory and organizational learning theory, we further argue that a clear goal makes this mediating mechanism of knowledge inflows less effective; the clearer the goal of a team, the lower the mediating effect of knowledge inflows. We tested the arguments on 150 sales teams of a large apparel firm based on surveys sent to both the sales team managers and members. The regression analysis of the survey data identified a negative moderating effect of goal clarity on the mediation of knowledge inflows between inter-team trust and innovation. This paper contributes to advancing theories of trust and goal setting on team innovation.