Narrow Results

People differ in terms of the number and strength of ties that they cultivate. Previous literature has tended to focus on either strong ties or many weak ties with a largely unstated assumption that some degree of trade-off exists between the two (underlying trust and novel knowledge, respectively) and their relative contribution to innovation. Within the context of R&D in a SA MNC, this research provided evidence that tie breadth and tie strength are complementary in team innovation. The previously-documented tension between novelty and trust however remains present and becomes evident in the location of ties. Both strong and weak ties contribute most to innovation if they are neither too close (i.e., own team) nor too distant (i.e., outside the MNC). Instead, ties inside the greater R&D unit contributed most to innovation. This role of the location of ties suggests that studies of networks cannot remain limited to tie breadth and strength but has to be rooted in the specific context. This is consistent with prior evidence of innovation within mature and process-driven industries where an in-depth understanding of organisation knowledge is required rather than that of novel technologies. This largely inward orientation has important implications for the competitiveness of emerging MNCs.

Reflexivity, the extent to which teams reflect upon and modify their functioning, is widely considered a key factor for engendering team innovation. In this study, we propose that reflexivity is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for team innovation. Outcome interdependence, defined as the extent to which team members perceive that attainment of goals by their colleagues will facilitate their own goal achievement, and shared team vision, will moderate the effect of team reflexivity on team innovation. An empirical study with 332 team members of 34 software projects reveals that as predicted high outcome interdependence and shared team vision magnified the positive impacts of team reflexivity on team innovation. However, an increase in team reflexivity at low outcome interdependence and shared team vision had a negative impact on team innovation. Further, in general, agile software teams consistently demonstrated higher outcome interdependence and team reflexivity and thereby higher team innovation compared to teams adopting plan-driven methods of software development.

Early technology start-up faces a lot of problems such as leader mentality, ecosystem, lack of general knowledge, and innovation. One of the root causes is the absence of leadership role. This study is constructed to fill a research gap on the influence of servant leadership behaviour to team innovation in technology start-up. The authors propose team ambidexterity as mediator to enhance the role of servant leadership behaviour in fostering team innovation. We also investigate the team climate as a moderator to support the team ambidexterity. The samples are 207 start-up members in Indonesia which aggregated into 59 clustered samples. The result shows that the team ambidexterity has a significant mediation effect between servant leadership behaviour and team innovation. Second result is team climate, which is a good moderator on team ambidexterity. These outcomes lead to research opportunities and practical implications to enhance the team innovation among start-ups.