ABSTRACT
Three themes dominate the writings of researchers investigating creativity and innovation among work teams. The first is the importance of the group task and the demands and opportunities it creates for creativity and innovation. The second is the theme of diversity in knowledge and skills among team members, which researchers suggest is related to both team creativity and innovation. The third is the theme of team integration-when team members work in integrated ways to capitalize on their diverse knowledge and skills, researchers believe that both creativity and innovation implementation result. In this chapter, we propose an important fourth element-the extent of external demands or uncertainty. We propose that creativity and innovation implementation represent two stages in the innovation process and that external demands have quite opposite effects on each of these stages. We argue that external demands on the team inhibit creativity or idea generation, but encourage the implementation of creative ideas or innovation implementation. This proposition has important implications not only for theory in the area, but also for practice.
