Teamwork and Organizational Innovation: The Moderating Role of the HRM Context

Abstract

Evidence is accumulating on the role of teams in shaping a variety of business outcomes, but our knowledge on the effect of teamwork on organizational innovation is still evolving. This study examines whether the extent to which two staff groups are organized in teams (production staff and management/administrative staff) affects organizational innovation and whether human resource management (HRM) systems, which can be of facilitating or constraining nature, enhance the teamwork/innovation relationships. Hypotheses were tested with lagged and longitudinal data derived from 18 to 45 organizations from the UK manufacturing sector. Results suggest that the more widespread the use of teamwork in organizations, the higher the level of organizational innovation. Furthermore, this effect depends, particularly for production teams, on the overall quality of the HRM systems that exist in their organizations. Teamwork/innovation relationships are further moderated (for management and administrative teams) by an HRM practice that provides teams with time for thoughtful reflection. Thus, HRM systems can be of more or less facilitating or constraining nature for teams in organizations.

The Impact of Team Learning Behaviors on Team Innovative Work Behavior

“…Innovations at work are a crucial means for organizations to cope with increasing customer expectations, competition, and market dynamics (Anderson, Potočnik, & Zhou, 2014;Fay, Shippton, West, & Patterson, 2015;Subramaniam & Youndt, 2005). …”

“…That is, innovation development is an interactive process that involves multiple actors with numerous responsibilities who interact to share their problems and ideas, who come up with strategies for realizing their ideas, and who discuss their experiences with prototypes of the innovation in practice (Kanter, 1988;Van der Vegt & Janssen, 2003). Accordingly, to enhance innovation processes, more insight needs to be gained into the dynamics of these social processes that then can be used in organizations to foster the development of innovations (Dyer & Nobeoka, 2000;Singh, 2005).A crucial fact to take into account in this respect is that numerous organizations have adopted work teams as an organizational structure which, if implemented properly, enables efficient work processes (Fay et al, 2015). With respect to the social nature of innovation processes, teams may be expected to contribute to the development of innovations.…”

Leadership and Employees’ Innovative Work Behavior: Test of a Mediation and Moderation Model

“…This contextual condition requires that companies have to be prepared to change permanently, to be flexible and to sense the business environment to achieve a dynamic adaptation to this complex context. For this reason, scholars argue that innovation is the best strategy to allow firms to be more competitive, deal with increasing customer expectations and maintain their position in marketplaces (Fay, Shippton, West, & Patterson, 2015;Hoch, 2013;Shafie, Siti-Nabiha, & Tan, 2014;Subramaniam & Youndt, 2005). Hence, an important theoretical and practical enquiry is to understand how organizations should be led in order to improve their innovation capabilities (Hoch, 2013) making the firms more competitive and more likely to survive in a highly complex business world.…”

Sustainable and flexible human resource management for innovative organizations

“…McGuirk et al (2015) showed the importance of innovative HRM on success and performace of small firms. Fay et al (2015) showed the moderating role of HRM on innovative organizations. For this purpose, innovative organizations must develop positive psychological capacities among their employees, both leaders and followers (Toor et al, 2009).…”