Abstract
The concept diversity is traditionally recognised as encompassing factors like age, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, religion, first language and the more hidden neuro-diversities. However, team-leaders may be more curious about their team members’ diverse knowledge bases, skills, work experiences and intercultural competences. Whatever conception of diversity is applied, team leaders are understandably interested in the finding that heterogenous teams can lead to more creativity and novelty than homogenous teams (Phillips et al. 2006).
Cantner et al. (2010) investigated the effect of heterogeneity in 337 new venture teams in terms of: knowledge scope, i.e., the beneficial effects of heterogeneity ascribed to the breadth of a team’s cognitive resources, and knowledge discrepancy, i.e., the detrimental effects of functional team heterogeneity ascribed to social categorization processes such as differing sets of values.
Indicators for innovation performance in early-stage ideas were pursued in Frederiksen et al. (2017) as an amalgamation of criteria from the creativity literature for ideas to be creative and of criteria from the innovation literature for ideas to be innovative; it was argued that companies can identify promising ideas by looking at a combination of the degrees of novelty, of usefulness, and of market potential. In the same paper, Frederiksen and Knudsen apply these criteria to 106 student projects from the years 2014-2016 from the course Experts in Teams (EiT) for engineering students at the University of Southern Denmark (SDU).
In the work presented here, we continue along these lines and present statistics on student projects from 2017-2021 from the course EiT at SDU. More precisely, we want to investigate the impact of team heterogeneity as knowledge scope on team performance as innovation performance potential.
Approach
We have data (age, gender, study programme, EiT course grades) on students and teams of students from the years 2017-2021; all in all, around 2300 students and 400 groups. When it comes to the projects or challenges the teams worked on, they fell into 3 groups: company themes, entrepreneurial themes, and non-business themes. We scope the work presented here to investigating the relationship between number of different study programmes represented in a team and the grade the team receives for its group report.
Though both structure and content of the group report have changed over the years, it remains at its core a qualified value proposition. The report is graded based on how well the presented value proposition targets the recipient and this can be used as a measure of innovation performance potential. Whether this is a valid measure can be discussed. It is difficult to justify that, e.g., the grade should reflect the market potential. Nevertheless, the grade can still serve as a relevant measure of team performance. Afterall, we do not need to go as far as innovation performance potential to measure team performance; arguing for an idea’s value creation potential for a recipient should serve as well.
Results
Independent of theme-type, we expect results to support the hypothesis also investigated by Cantner et al. (2010), that performance – in our case report group grade - will be an inverse U-shaped function of knowledge scope – in our case number of different study programmes represented.
Implications
If results are as expected, we have support for the hypothesis also beyond business ventures. If results are not as expected, then we will have indications that something is amiss in our understanding.
Value/originality
With this research, we set out on combining the Frederiksen et al. (2017)-understanding of innovation performance, i.e., as novelty combined with usefulness and market potential, with the Cantner et al. (2010)-understanding of venture performance, i.e. in terms of team heterogeneity. Furthermore, we will have data beyond the that extent beyond business ventures.
References
Cantner, U., Goethner, M., & Stuetzer, M. (2010). Disentangling the Effects of New Venture Team Functional Heterogeneity on New Venture Performance. Jena Economic Research Papers, 2010, 029.
Frederiksen, M. H., & Knudsen, M. P. (2017). From Creative Ideas to Innovation Performance: The Role of Assessment Criteria. Creativity and Innovation Management, 26(1), 60-74. doi:10.1111/caim.12204
Phillips, K. W., Northcraft, G. B., & Neale, M. A. (2006). Surface-Level Diversity and Decision-Making in Groups: When Does Deep-Level Similarity Help? Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 9(4), 467-482. doi:10.1177/1368430206067557
Cantner et al. (2010) investigated the effect of heterogeneity in 337 new venture teams in terms of: knowledge scope, i.e., the beneficial effects of heterogeneity ascribed to the breadth of a team’s cognitive resources, and knowledge discrepancy, i.e., the detrimental effects of functional team heterogeneity ascribed to social categorization processes such as differing sets of values.
Indicators for innovation performance in early-stage ideas were pursued in Frederiksen et al. (2017) as an amalgamation of criteria from the creativity literature for ideas to be creative and of criteria from the innovation literature for ideas to be innovative; it was argued that companies can identify promising ideas by looking at a combination of the degrees of novelty, of usefulness, and of market potential. In the same paper, Frederiksen and Knudsen apply these criteria to 106 student projects from the years 2014-2016 from the course Experts in Teams (EiT) for engineering students at the University of Southern Denmark (SDU).
In the work presented here, we continue along these lines and present statistics on student projects from 2017-2021 from the course EiT at SDU. More precisely, we want to investigate the impact of team heterogeneity as knowledge scope on team performance as innovation performance potential.
Approach
We have data (age, gender, study programme, EiT course grades) on students and teams of students from the years 2017-2021; all in all, around 2300 students and 400 groups. When it comes to the projects or challenges the teams worked on, they fell into 3 groups: company themes, entrepreneurial themes, and non-business themes. We scope the work presented here to investigating the relationship between number of different study programmes represented in a team and the grade the team receives for its group report.
Though both structure and content of the group report have changed over the years, it remains at its core a qualified value proposition. The report is graded based on how well the presented value proposition targets the recipient and this can be used as a measure of innovation performance potential. Whether this is a valid measure can be discussed. It is difficult to justify that, e.g., the grade should reflect the market potential. Nevertheless, the grade can still serve as a relevant measure of team performance. Afterall, we do not need to go as far as innovation performance potential to measure team performance; arguing for an idea’s value creation potential for a recipient should serve as well.
Results
Independent of theme-type, we expect results to support the hypothesis also investigated by Cantner et al. (2010), that performance – in our case report group grade - will be an inverse U-shaped function of knowledge scope – in our case number of different study programmes represented.
Implications
If results are as expected, we have support for the hypothesis also beyond business ventures. If results are not as expected, then we will have indications that something is amiss in our understanding.
Value/originality
With this research, we set out on combining the Frederiksen et al. (2017)-understanding of innovation performance, i.e., as novelty combined with usefulness and market potential, with the Cantner et al. (2010)-understanding of venture performance, i.e. in terms of team heterogeneity. Furthermore, we will have data beyond the that extent beyond business ventures.
References
Cantner, U., Goethner, M., & Stuetzer, M. (2010). Disentangling the Effects of New Venture Team Functional Heterogeneity on New Venture Performance. Jena Economic Research Papers, 2010, 029.
Frederiksen, M. H., & Knudsen, M. P. (2017). From Creative Ideas to Innovation Performance: The Role of Assessment Criteria. Creativity and Innovation Management, 26(1), 60-74. doi:10.1111/caim.12204
Phillips, K. W., Northcraft, G. B., & Neale, M. A. (2006). Surface-Level Diversity and Decision-Making in Groups: When Does Deep-Level Similarity Help? Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 9(4), 467-482. doi:10.1177/1368430206067557
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Proceedings of the 6th conference on interdisciplinary teamwork skills for the 21st century |
| Publication date | 16. Jun 2022 |
| Publication status | Published - 16. Jun 2022 |
| Event | Its21 6th conference on interdisciplinary teamwork skills - University of Trondheim, Trondheim, Norway Duration: 16. Jun 2022 → 17. Jun 2022 https://www.ntnu.edu/its21/ |
Conference
| Conference | Its21 6th conference on interdisciplinary teamwork skills |
|---|---|
| Location | University of Trondheim |
| Country/Territory | Norway |
| City | Trondheim |
| Period | 16/06/2022 → 17/06/2022 |
| Internet address |