The nonlinear effects of educational diversity on team creativity

Abstract

Over the past two decades, studies on the relationship between team job‐related diversity and creativity have yielded mixed findings. Drawing on the dynamic capability perspective, we argue that previous studies have underestimated the importance of a team's capability for utilizing diversity. In this study, we re‐examine the mixed findings on the relationship between diversity of educational background and team creativity by adding the consideration of knowledge integration capability. The results from a sample of 47 work teams support the significant moderating effect of knowledge integration capability on the curvilinear relationship between educational diversity and team creativity. The implications of our findings and the directions for future research are also discussed.