Innovation: A review of research in organizational behavior

There is a consensus among organization researchers that most of the innovation that takes place in organizations happens in groups and teams. This chapter reviews studies of organizational innovation that focus on groups and teams. Examples include cross-functional task forces, process improvement committees, new product development teams, and top management groups. Teams hold the promise of delivering real innovative breakthroughs by combining knowledge and perspective from different parts of an organization in order to generate new ways of thinking about products, processes, or markets. But in order to realize this innovative potential, teams must be structured and managed in ways that increase the opportunity for useful creative ideas to be recognized, selected, and then combined with other creative ideas to generate organizational innovation. Our chapter groups this literature into four broad categories: team composition, team process, team norms, and team organizational contexts that are associated with innovation outcomes.