Social processes and team creativity in multicultural teams: A socio‐technical framework

Abstract

Cultural diversity is widely believed to broaden the knowledge and perspectives in a team and hence benefit team creativity. However, cultural diversity can at the same time suppress team creativity through the negative social processes it engenders, and this negative mechanism has received little theoretical attention. We present a theoretical analysis to explicate how cultural diversity creates cultural identity and intercultural obstacles, which hinder knowledge sharing and integration among team members and hence team creativity. Drawing on the socio-technical systems perspective, we identify two types of contextual variables that moderate the negative, mediated impact of cultural diversity on team creativity: information and communication technology and task environment in terms of task characteristics. We provide an analysis of how each type of variables moderates the negative impact of cultural diversity on social processes and the impact of social processes on knowledge sharing and integration. Several future research directions based on the socio-technical systems perspective are discussed.

Team creativity/innovation in culturally diverse teams: A meta‐analysis

“…Van Knippenberg et al () proposed that social and informational processes are dual pathways connecting diversity in multicultural teams and team creativity/innovation, and these two processes interact with each other. However, Leung and Wang () proposed a chain mediating model in which cultural diversity influences social processes, and then informational processes, and finally team creativity. Without examining the mediating mechanisms between diversity in multicultural teams and team creativity/innovation, we cannot explore these different alternatives and thus encourage future research in this direction.…”

“…Task intellectiveness is also important in multicultural teams because of its relevance to the prominence of informational benefits and social costs in such teams (Leung & Wang, ). An intellective task refers to “a group problem or decision for which there exists a demonstrably correct solution within a conceptual system” (Laughlin & Adamopoulos, , p. 941), such as mathematics or formal logics (e.g., engineering and accounting problems).…”

“…In line with Leung and Wang (2015), we draw on the socio-technical systems theory (Trist & Bamforth, 1951) to explore moderators for the relationship between diversity in culturally diverse teams and team creativity/innovation. The central tenet of this theory is that a social structure (social side) interacts with technology (technical side) to affect team outcomes.…”

“…They leverage each other's information and may also encounter identity and interaction problems. The effects of cultural diversity on team outcomes are contingent on technical factors that may affect the marginal effects of its informational benefits and social costs (Leung & Wang, 2015). Early studies on technical systems focus on equipment, technology, and operation methods that transform raw materials into products, whereas recent literature pays attention to task environment due to the changing nature of work (Davis, Challenger, Jayewardene, & Clegg, 2014;Stewart & Barrick, 2000).…”

“…This possible strength of cultural diversity is a chief reason that many multinationals utilize multicultural teams (Gibson, Huang, Kirkman, & Shapiro, ; Hajro, Gibson, & Pudelko, ; Lisak, Erez, Sui, & Lee, ). However, cultural diversity also incurs social costs such as cultural identity problems and difficulties in intercultural interaction (Leung & Wang, ), which may offset the creative potential of diverse groups (Giambatista & Bhappu, ). Therefore, the effect of cultural diversity on team creativity/innovation must be investigated to understand how to leverage cultural diversity.…”