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Team diversity and creativity
Masaharu Yano
National Institute of Informatics, Tokyo, Japan
Abstract
- 'Which R&D teams if any in this company's research laboratories do you think exhibit creativity?'
- 'Which individual researchers if any working in this company's research laboratories do you think exhibit creativity?'
In 1996 these two questions were addressed to all researchers (excluding managers not working directly with research teams) working in the research laboratories of Japanese manufacturing company A in the form of an open ballot type questionnaire that was distributed through regular office channels. 1,022 people returned the questionnaire for a response rate of 85.2%.
It was found that (1) there is a low correlation between creativity assessed this way and the number of patents or that of research papers. It was also found that (2) creativity exists as an attribute of R&D teams that is distinct from creativity as an attribute of individuals. It was also apparent that (3) there was a connection between some heterogeneous feature -that is, diversity on the team-and team creativity.
Keywords
R&D teams, creativity, heterogeneity, diversity, votes, factor analysis
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