Creative capability, Personality and Innovative Output at the Team Level

Abstract

Creativity and innovation have become crucial factors for the success and survival of any organization. However, despite the wide use of teams for creative tasks and promising potential benefits of teamwork, much about the determinants of team creativity is still unknown. This study advances the understanding of team creativity by analyzing how the team members' creative ability and personality affect innovative team output. Over the course of one semester, 43 teams of undergraduate and MBA students were instructed to generate a new and creative business idea. A mix of objective and subjective measures was used to assess the teams' level of creative ability, extraversion and agreeableness, as well as the innovativeness of their final output. Results show that agreeableness positively moderates the relationship between creative ability and innovative output. This finding highlights the important role that the social context plays in teamwork. Moreover, it shows that certain factors can have a strikingly different, or even the opposite effect on the team level than they do on the individual level.