Facilitating Innovation in Diverse Science Teams Through Integrative Capacity

Abstract

Knowledge integration in diverse teams depends on their integrative capacity—the social and cognitive processes, along with emergent states, that shape a team’s ability to combine diverse knowledge. We argue that integrative capacity represents the potential that a team has to overcome various compositional, team, and contextual barriers to generating integrated and novel knowledge. This article focuses specifically on the unique challenges facing diverse science teams that have the goal of generating novel knowledge at the intersection of disciplinary, practice, and organizational boundaries. The integrative capacity of a science team is argued to help facilitate the social and cognitive integration processes necessary for effective team processes that enhance the likelihood of innovative team outcomes. Implications of our theoretical framework for practice and research on fostering innovation in diverse science teams are discussed.