ABSTRACT
This chapter argues for the utility of research focusing specifically at the level of the work group, and calls for additional research to address fundamental gaps in the existing research base. Difficulties with defining terminology have plagued researchers in this field for some years. Distinguishing innovation from creativity and separating purposive innovation attempts from surrendipitous organizational change have been perhaps the two most tenacious conundrums. Both definitions are processual in orientation, emphasizing the symbiotic relation between tasks and interpersonal processes underlying innovation. Work by applied psychologists into group development and task performance sheds more light upon the relationship between group innovation and development over time. Numerous models of the process of innovation at the organizational level and the process of creativity at the individual level are to be found in the literature, but basic similarities are discernible across most models.
