Examining the Factors Behind the Success and Sustainability of China’s Creative Research Group: An Extension of the Teamwork Quality Model

Abstract

The Creative Research Group (CRG) is the special high-level scientific and innovation team funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China to promote basic research at the frontiers of science. In general, there are problems of “structure anomie” and “cooperation inefficiency” in the operations and teamwork dynamics within the nationwide CRG project. By extending and developing the two-stage teamwork quality model, this study aims to depict and analyze the impact factors behind the success and sustainability of the Creative Research Group (SSCRG), and reveal the relationships among them. Herein, rationality of team structure (ROTS) is used to describe the rationality of team formation and structure collocation, teamwork quality (TWQ) is used to describe the process of team members’ integration and cooperation, and SSCRG includes team performance, personal success and team comprehensive impacts. The results show that ROTS and TWQ have different influences on SSCRG, while TWQ is the key mediation factor between ROTS and SSCRG. In summary, the model built describes the complex phenomena and relationships in the teamwork of the CRG, and helps us to understand and solve the problems of structure and cooperation. Although the limitations lie in the specific samples and research methods, the extension and migration of classical models and theories would help to further deepen such research and contribute to the governance and development of such innovation teams.