Title

A time for everything: how the timing of novel contributions influences project team outcomes

Authors

Authors

C. Ford;D. M. Sullivan

Comments

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Abbreviated Journal Title

J. Organ. Behav.

Keywords

INTEGRATIVE MODEL; WORK GROUPS; CREATIVITY; INNOVATION; BEHAVIOR; ORGANIZATIONS; TRANSITIONS; PERFORMANCE; Business; Psychology, Applied; Management

Abstract

One of the primary reasons organizations utilize project teams is to encourage members with diverse intellectual resources to produce novel associations that give rise to creative solutions. When creative sparks fly, learning, innovation and superior performance are often the result. However, in this paper we argue that creative sparks often create heat of another sort-frustration resulting from unfocused effort and diminished productivity. Utilizing Gersick's (1988) punctuated equilibrium model of project team development as a theoretical foundation, we argue that the meaning and impact of novel contributions change during a project team's life cycle. Novel contributions are beneficial to a project team early in its development when its primary goals are to learn more about a problem, search for useful information, and articulate tentative solutions. After the midpoint transition, when a team's attention shifts toward executing the proposal and satisfying external stakeholders before a looming deadline, additional attempts to introduce novel ideas are likely to disrupt performance and induce frustration. We develop a model and accompanying research propositions suggesting that the relationship between novel proposals and the value attributed to those proposals is contingent on timing with respect to a project team's midpoint transition. Copyright (C) 2004 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.

Journal Title

Journal of Organizational Behavior

Volume

25

Issue/Number

2

Publication Date

1-1-2004

Document Type

Article

Language

English

First Page

279

Last Page

292

WOS Identifier

WOS:000189076900008

ISSN

0894-3796

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