Antecedents of team innovation in health care teams

Abstract

We extend previous research on team innovation by looking at team‐level motivations and how a prosocial team environment, indicated by the level of helping behaviour and information‐sharing, may foster innovation. Hypotheses were tested in two independent samples of health care teams (N1 = 72 teams, N2 = 113 teams), using self‐report measures. The examples of team innovation given by the individual team members were then rated for innovativeness by independent health care experts to avoid common method bias for the outcome variable. Subsequently, the data was aggregated and analysed at team level. The study was part of a larger data‐gathering effort on health care teams in the UK. Results supported the hypotheses of main effects of both information‐sharing and helping behaviour on team innovation and interaction effects with team size and occupational diversity. Differences in findings between types of health care teams can be attributed to differences in team tasks and functions. The results suggest ways in which helping and information‐sharing may act as buffers against constraints in team work, such as large team size or high occupational diversity in cross‐functional health care teams, and potentially turn these into resources supporting team innovation rather than acting as barriers.

Initiative climate, psychological safety and knowledge sharing as predictors of team creativity: A multilevel study of research and development project teams

“…We controlled for age, gender and tenure under the current leader at the individual level. We controlled for tenure differentiation and education diversity at the group level as suggested by Chatman and Flynn (2001) because demographic heterogeneity may lower group cooperation and negatively affect team processes (Harrison & Klein, 2007; Milliken et al, 2003; Moser et al, 2019). The standard deviation was used to assess tenure differentiation.…”

“…Sharing knowledge is the antecedent of mutual learning among team members. Through these reciprocal sharing and learning behaviours (for instance, seeking help, requesting feedback, talking about errors and experimenting), team members are able to adapt and improve (Edmondson, 1999; Moser et al, 2019). The process of sharing knowledge also acts as a catalyst by which an integration of existing knowledge from an employee and new inputs from other team members can be transformed into creative ideas.…”

Teamwork in Healthcare Management

“…In addition, the formal approach considers that: personal relationships are also a source of informal information that can overcome the barriers created by formal panels; market logic relates to the creation of information and knowledge-exchange relationships that tend to be maintained through the investment that has been put into the relationship; and professional relationships relate to communication within the domain of professions by creating networks of contacts between professionals based on mutual help. Information-sharing and supportive behaviours have also been observed to have a positive impact on innovation in healthcare teams [64].…”

Innovative approaches in management: a key factor for the quality of health services

“…IS is a critical process because if information is not shared and adapted in team processes, then individual resources remain underused in implementing innovative approaches (Moser et al, 2019;Srivastava et al, 2006;Vainieri et al, 2019).…”