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

Abstract

Summary This meta‐analysis investigates the direction and strength of the relationship between diversity in culturally diverse teams and team creativity/innovation. We distinguish the effects of two diversity levels (i.e., surface level vs. deep level) in culturally diverse teams and examine the moderators suggested by the socio‐technical systems framework (i.e., team virtuality and task characteristics in terms of task interdependence, complexity, and intellectiveness). Surface‐level diversity in culturally diverse teams is not related to team creativity/innovation, whereas deep‐level diversity in culturally diverse teams is positively related to team creativity/innovation. Moreover, surface‐level diversity in culturally diverse teams and team creativity/innovation are negatively related for simple tasks but unrelated for complex tasks. Deep‐level diversity in culturally diverse teams and team creativity/innovation is positively related for collocated teams and interdependent tasks but unrelated for noncollocated teams and independent tasks. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications.

Unraveling the effects of cultural diversity in teams: A retrospective of research on multicultural work groups and an agenda for future research

“…Research on the relationship between diversity (including cultural diversity) and creativity in teams has almost exploded in the past 10 years (e.g., Crotty & Brett, 2012;Jang, 2017;Leung & Wang, 2015). The cultural studies were summarized well in a recent meta-analysis by Wang et al (2019). Based on 44 studies conducted between 1985 and early 2018 (most of them after 2010), they reinforced that deep-level diversity is associated with more creativity due to its relationship with higher information diversity.…”

“…Three recent studies have provided important perspectives for future research. The aforementioned meta-analysis by Wang et al (2019) offers a fine-grained analysis of how surface-level and deep-level diversity attributes, in conjunction with team characteristics such as team virtuality, task complexity, and task interdependence, influence team creativity and innovation. In another study, Taras et al (2019) abandoned the distinction between surface-level and deep-level indicators altogether and instead proposed a refined theoretical model that differentiates between the effects of personal versus contextual diversity and specifies how these distinct forms of diversity affect task outcomes and psychological outcomes in different ways.…”

Restoring the Leadership Balance: WOMEN UNITE

“…It’s also important to note that diversity should not be limited to lower echelons of organizations, as this is exactly why so many women refrain from rising through the ranks. Surface-level diversity does not lead to creativity and innovation, but when diversity is thoroughly embedded and valued in an organization (deep-level diversity), there will be a clear positive effect on the team’s creativity and innovation (Wang, Grand, Cheng, & Leung, 2019 ). N avigate the path from here onward :If there’s one thing none of us can afford, it’s becoming stagnant and stale, especially in the case of women in supervisory positions.…”

Work in Progress: Cultural Diversity and Teamwork Effectiveness: A Systematized Literature Review

“…We excluded papers only focusing on relationship of cultural diversity and team creativity because Wang et al conducted a meta-analysis study to confirm the positive effect of cultural diversity on team creativity and the paper was comprehensive and relatively new [4]. Similarly, there was also a meta-analysis on leadership's influence on team effectiveness [21].…”

“…With the developing process of globalization, both academy and industry are increasingly involved in multicultural contexts [1]- [3]. Therefore, multicultural teams, in which members possess different national or ethnic cultural backgrounds with various mental models, modes of perception and approaches to problems have become widespread and important around the world [4]- [5]. A surging amount of literature in multicultural teams exists not only in business management and industrial organization fields [4]- [5] but also in disciplines such as sports [6], [7], health care [8]- [10] and education [3], [11], [12].…”