Translating Team Creativity to Innovation Implementation

Abstract

This study investigated team innovation as a process phenomenon by differentiating the creativity stage from the implementation stage. Based on the interactional approach, the authors argue that team composition (aggregated individual creative personality and functional heterogeneity) affects team creativity, which in turn promotes innovation implementation depending on the team’s climate for innovation. Results from a study of 96 primary care teams confirmed that aggregated individual creative personality, as well as functional heterogeneity, promotes team creativity, which in turn interacts with climate for innovation such that team creativity enhances innovation implementation only when climate for innovation is high.