Ambidexterity on Team-level: A Meta-analysis.

Master’s Thesis Draft 1.1

Ambidexterity on Team-level: A Meta-analysis.

By

Wout-Jan Bekkernens 1 06 13 43 50 71

w.bekkernens@student.rug.nl

University of Groningen Faculty of Economics and Business

Nettelbosje 2 9747 AE Groningen

Date; Januari 2014

Master of Science, Business Administration Specialization, Strategy and Innovation Management

1st supervisor: Dr. J. D. van der Bij 2nd supervisor: Dr. W.G. Biemans

Word count: 8597

Abstract

Innovation is what drives today’s world and for organizations to remain viable they need to be constantly expecting innovation from their organization members. Team ambidexterity, simultaneously creating ideas and effectively implementing them as a team is becoming more important every day. Several studies have focused on predictors of team ambidexterity and this study sets out to create a more holistic overview of which predictors of team ambidexterity can and can’t be considered significant. From 27 studies there was only 1 predictor of team ambidexterity to be found homogeneous and significant, goal interdependence. The remaining factors are either heterogeneous or insignificant, and for the heterogeneous factors a moderator analysis was conducted. The moderator analysis did reveal some moderating effects, such as type of industry a team is active in, but did not sufficiently prove any other predictors of team ambidexterity.

Keywords: Innovation, creativity, productivity of implementation, teams, meta-analysis,

Table of Contents

Introduction ... 1

Literature review ... 3

Data Collection and Methodology ... 13

Results ... 15

Conclusion & Implications ... 20

Bibliography ... 23

Appendix 1 ... 28

Appendix 2 ... 29

1

Introduction

Ambidextrous organizations are capable of simultaneous, yet contradictory, knowledge management processes, exploiting current competencies and exploring new domains with equal dexterity (Andriopoulos & Lewis, 2009). As such, ambidexterity is believed to be a key precursor for long-term organizational success, since the balance between exploration and exploitation should not be seen as a mediocre split, but truly excelling at both approaches such that these will enhance each other (Atauhene-Gima, 2005). Whereas structural ambidextrous organizations do use separate structural units for exploration and exploitation, with each unit having different competencies, systems, incentives, processes and cultures, the interest of the researcher focuses more on the concept of contextual ambidexterity. Contextual ambidexterity is the behavioral capacity to simultaneously demonstrate alignment and adaptability across an entire business unit or business units. Alignment refers to coherence among all the patterns of activities in the business unit meaning they are working together toward the same goals (Gibson & Birkinshaw 2004).

2 with an overview of how teams can be ambidextrous, and the state of the academic literature regarding these concepts will hopefully achieve this goal.

The need for Meta-Analysis at the Team Level of Analysis

In the current academic literature a number of studies focus on organizational ambidexterity on team-level or on the factors on team-level that influence the exploratory or exploitative innovation of those teams, business units and eventually entire companies. Unfortunately, empirical results found in this literature are often controversial, inconclusive and there is little or no connection at all between these existing works of literature. For example internal communication is supposedly negatively correlated to creativity as well as productivity of implementation (Lovelace et al., 2001; Katz, 1982), but also empirical evidence is found that it actually has a positive correlation with creativity as well as productivity of implementation (Vera & Crossan, 2005; Hoegl & Gemuenden, 2001).

Apart from this the need for this meta-analysis is apparent for several different reasons. First, because it is necessary to develop a platform that distinguishes the most important factors that influence a team’s exploratory innovative, exploitative innovative and ambidextrous performance. Second, to determine whether these factors are (independently or combined) already sufficiently researched or need further clarification through new research (the latter will also be recommended when literature is abundant, but different sources contradict each other). Third, combining the literature for these factors in a meta-analysis on a meso-analytical level like team-level can be used as a foundation for a much-needed meta-analysis of ambidexterity on an organizational-level in order to create an overview of the ambidexterity field of study as a whole. To contribute to current literature this meta-analysis will build on the team-level predictors of innovation at work (Hülsheger et al., 2009) and aim to research whether the proposed predictors of innovation can be similarly influential in predicting team-level ambidexterity at work. Therefore the research question we will try to answer is:

3

Literature review

First the main concepts of this research will be introduced, explained and our hypotheses will be stated. The works of Hülsheger et al. (2009) make a clear distinction between creativity and innovation, creativity being a sub process of innovation, the focus of the research is at innovation as a whole, thus encompassing creativity as well as the implementation of generated ideas. For this research the distinction between exploratory innovation and exploitative innovation is rather important. Regarding the team-level scope of this research exploratory innovation will be comprised of predictors associated with creativity and idea-generation, while exploitative innovation is associated with productivity of implementation.

Creativity

Explorative innovation on team level is all about creativity, finding new ideas and ways to work and solve the problems a team can encounter. Creativity encompasses the processes leading to the generation of new and valued ideas. In informal use, innovation concerns those behavioral and social processes whereby individuals, groups, or organizations seek to achieve desired changes, or avoid the penalties of inaction (West, 2002). For this meta-analysis we will focus on creative processes that are defined as team members working together in such a manner that they link ideas from multiple sources, delve into unknown areas to find better or unique approaches to a problem, or seek out novel ways of performing a task (Gilson & Shalley, 2004). In the articles included in the meta-analysis this definition is found in variables such as team creativity, creative performance of the team and creative strategy of the team.

Productivity of Implementation

Exploitative innovation on team level is defined as productivity of implementation of the ideas, new processes and ways of working that have come up at the creativity stage. Innovation implementation within an organization or team is the process of gaining targeted employees' appropriate and committed use of an innovation. In short it simply is the introduction and

4

Team Ambidexterity

Team ambidexterity, the main dependent variable in this research is comprised of previously mentioned variables, creativity and productivity of implementation. Ambidexterity refers to the synchronous pursuit of both exploration and exploitation via coupled and differentiated individuals, each of which specializes in either exploration or exploitation. In contrast, punctuated equilibrium refers to temporal rather than organizational differentiation and suggests that cycling through periods of exploration and exploitation is a more viable approach than a simultaneous pursuit of the two (Gupta et al., 2006). For this research we want to include teams that become ambidextrous themselves, thus creating their own ideas and equally implement them in a later stage of the innovation, instead of only creative teams that “throw” their ideas over the wall to other teams that only focus on implementing these ideas.

Team size

Team size is related to the count measure of multidisciplinary as larger teams tend to have a higher likelihood of having a higher number of different professions on the team than smaller teams, which increases the creativity of the team (Fay et al., 2006). Also it is very possible that larger teams process more diverse perspectives and therefore have the potential to achieve a more comprehensive processing of information and decisions, both of which processes are likely to lead to creative ideas (West et al., 2003). Another interpretation is that larger teams have the critical mass of people necessary to sustain innovation attempts such that they are implemented in practice rather than failing at an early stage (West et al., 2003). Group research has established that group size is an important variable. It indirectly influences the potential magnitude of the coefficient of variation and may affect group process and communication, in turn influencing productivity of implementation (Ancona & Caldwell, 1992b). Also relative team size has been proven to be related to what we refer to productivity of implementation being group effectiveness, with larger groups being more effective (Campion et al., 1993). We therefore propose that team size is positively related to innovation.

5

Team longevity

It is often argued that the creative performance of teams decreases with their age. For example, the creative performance of research scientist decreases with the time they are part of a group. The main argument is that with team age, problem solving and cognitive processes become more established, reinforced, and habitual through uncertainty reduction by team members (Kratzer et al., 2006, Kratzer et al., 2004). Research has shown that after 2–3 years teams tended to communicate less with important information providers, monitored the environment less, and communicated less with important groups outside the team than they did before, which is detrimental for creativity (Schippers et al., 2003). Also, group longevity was negatively related to the performance of the teams in the research of Katz (1982), where project performance was significantly lower for project group longevities of more than five years, as opposed to groups with a shorter longevity. Katz’s (1982) research showed a curvilinear association between project performance and project tenure within this organization, indicating that too short group longevity can be negatively related to project performance as well. This can be seen as a negative relation to productivity of implementation and we therefore propose that team longevity is negatively related to innovation.

Hypothesis 2: Team longevity is negatively related to team ambidexterity.

Job-relevant diversity

6 the benefits are due to having members with diverse backgrounds and areas of expertise and diverse contacts with important external networks of information (Keller, 2001).

Hypothesis 3: Job-relevant diversity is positively related to team ambidexterity.

Background diversity

Background diversity is the heterogeneity of team members with respect non-task related differences such as age, gender or ethnicity (Pelled et al., 1999). Choi (2007) found that dissimilarities in gender and hierarchical status may have imposed a distinctly potent social barrier for minority members that made them reluctant to share ideas with others, detrimental for creativity within teams. Diversity in observable attributes has consistently been found to have negative effects on affective outcomes including performance at both the individual and group levels of analysis (Milliken & Martins, 1996). Bell et al. (2011) found negative relationships between various forms of background diversity (race variety, sex variety) and team performance. For example, race variety diversity may be predictive of team performance. Team members from different backgrounds or representing a variety of races may be less likely to develop a team identity, thus resulting in team members’ not sharing task-relevant information with the team (Bell et al., 2011). Unlike job-relevant diversity it appears that background diversity is primarily negatively related to as well creativity as productivity of implementation.

Hypothesis 4: Background diversity is negatively related to team ambidexterity.

Task interdependence

7 (Gilson & Shalley, 2004). By actively shaping and reshaping interdependencies the communication structure of NPD teams is altered and, consequently, the team’s creativity (Kratzer et al., 2003). Most authors that have been tasked with studying task interdependence seem to agree that it can have a significant effect on employees' productivity and the performance of work systems as well as on employees' morale (Brown & Mitchel, 1986).

Hypothesis 5: Task interdependence is positively related to team ambidexterity.

Goal interdependence

With goal interdependence meaning team members have cooperative goals, they want each other to perform effectively for such competence helps each person be successful in reaching personal goals. Team members who believed that their goals were compatible and reinforcing were found to discuss team issues directly to strengthen their internal functioning. Beliefs that goals are incompatible or unrelated were found to characterize teams that were unable to discuss team issues fruitfully. These results support earlier research indicating the value of cooperative goals for constructive team discussions and problem solving and extend them to reflecting on team dynamics (Tjosvold et al., 2004). Previous research has found that decision makers with cooperative goals voice their diverse views, become uncertain about the adequacy of their current thinking, explore and understand opposing perspectives, and integrate them to create quality solutions, fostering creativity (Tjosvold et al., 2004). Group goals improve the development of cooperative strategies and facilitate group performance due to the limited resources groups have to reach their goals. Congruent goals will allow a group to coordinate its task strategy effectively, maximizing the group performance (Saavedra et al., 1993).

Hypothesis 6: Goal interdependence is positively related to team ambidexterity.

Support for innovation

8 2004). Members of teams that were more engaged in creative processes reported their team climate as more supportive of creativity (Gilson & Shalley, 2004). According to results from the research of Amabile et al. (1996), it appears that people will produce more creative work and implement them more effectively when they perceive, for example, that management is encouraging them to solve problems creatively. For both post offices and post distribution teams’ significant relationships were found between support for innovation and perceived effectiveness of these teams (Mathisen et al., 2004).

Hypothesis 7: Support for innovation is positively related to team ambidexterity.

Participative safety

Team psychological safety has been defined as the shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking (Edmondson, 1999), which is part of the extent of participation in decision making and intragroup safety (West & Anderson, 1996). Team psychological safety’s relationship to plan formulation originates in its role as an enabler of individual team members speaking up and offering contributions during plan development, fostering team creativity (Burke et al., 2006). For the proposal, development, and implementation of ideas, group processes may become important in either hindering or facilitating the expression and development of ideas via articulated and enacted support from team members, as well as through participation (interaction, information sharing, and decision making) (West & Anderson, 1996). Similarly to support for innovation, for post offices and post distribution teams’ significant relationships were found between participative safety and perceived effectiveness of these teams (Mathisen et al., 2004).

Hypothesis 8: Participative safety is positively related to team ambidexterity.

Vision

9 indicating that a vision is positively related to team creativity and teams’ productivity of implementation. Again, research conducted for both post offices and post distribution teams’ showed significant relationships between vision and perceived effectiveness of these teams (Mathisen et al., 2004). Active teamwork toward common goals happens when members of a group share a common vision of the desired future state. This is one of the characteristics of a productive team, which is why senior management must work together as a team to build a shared vision and strategy for the organization and its teams (Isaksen & Lauer, 2002).

Hypothesis 9: Vision is positively related to team ambidexterity.

Task orientation

Task orientation is a shared concern with excellence of quality of task performance in relation to shared vision or outcomes, characterized by evaluations, modifications, control systems and critical appraisals (Anderson &West, 1998). A part of task orientation that is related to team creativity is what Tjosvold et al. (2004) call reflexivity. Reflexivity is expected to help teams know their actual workings and develop new understandings and methods that respond to emerging conditions and challenges, fostering creativity. Reflexivity is especially useful for groups working on challenging tasks and operating in complex environments. The major

implication is that to the extent that teams engage in this management of their processes they are able to continue to perform effectively (Tjosvold et al., 2004). Similarly as for participative safety, for the proposal, development, and implementation of ideas, group processes may become important in either hindering or facilitating the expression and development of ideas via

articulated and enacted support from team members, as well as through constructive conflict processes (task orientation) (West & Anderson, 1996).Also again for both post offices and post distribution teams’ significant relationships were found between task orientation and perceived effectiveness of these teams (Mathisen et al., 2004). We therefore propose that task orientation is positively related to team ambidexterity.

10

Cohesion

Cohesion is the commitment of team members to their work team and their desire to maintain group membership (Lott & Lott, 1965). Gilson & Shalley (2004) found that teams that were more engaged in creative processes had members who socialized more frequently inside and outside of work. This type of socializing and bonding allows for a freer flow of ideas, more brainstorming and a less threatening work environment that should foster creativity (Gilson & Shalley, 2004). Efficiency and effectiveness often rely on the communication and cooperation of group members. Cohesion being facilitator to these group processes, it will likely lead to more effective group performance and higher productivity of implementation of new ideas as well as more efficiency in creativity by producing higher numbers of ideas generated (Bael, 2003). Similar results emerge from the research by Evans & Dion (1991), where they found support for the contention that cohesive groups, on the average, tend to be more productive than non-cohesive groups, indicating a positive relation between performance and cohesion.

Hypothesis 11: Cohesion is positively related to team ambidexterity.

Internal communication

11 positive relationship between internal task-related communication and performance exists for software development project teams.

Hypothesis 12: Internal communication is positively related to team ambidexterity.

External communication

External communication is the extent of extra group communication, through whatever means possible (Hülsheger et al., 2009). Face to face meetings, email-correspondence or water cooler talks are all forms of internal communication as long as the communication is with people outside the boundaries of the team. The research of Denison et al. (1996) shows us a significant relationship between a cross-functional team’s external communication and a cross-functional teams’ creative strategy, as well as the teams’ effectiveness indicating that external communication is positively related to team creativity and teams’ productivity of implementation. Other researchers have found significant positive relations between teams’ productivity of implementation of ideas and their external communication (Hoegl et al., 2004; Hoegl & Gemuenden, 2001, Denison et al., 1996). These interactions with other teams or other functional areas are most likely a means of gaining new knowledge, new insights and create ideas that can be used to develop or adopt new ways to produce output.

Hypothesis 13: External communication is positively related to team ambidexterity.

Task conflict

Chen’s (2006) research on conflict and team creativity found results indicating that relationship conflict, as well as task conflict both have a positive relationship with team creativity. While this indicates that one type of conflict can breed the other, both were also found to independently positively relate to team creativity. When individuals experience conflict over how work is to be done, the process or act of disagreeing can result in the generation of new ideas and novel solutions. Research on group composition and conflict has found that diverse groups report having higher levels of task conflict, and such conflict was positively related to creative

12 effective decision making, fostering productivity of implementation of ideas as well as the

creation of ideas (Amason & Sapienza, 1997).

Hypothesis 14: Task conflict is positively related to team ambidexterity

Relationship conflict

Despite the potentially positive effects of task conflict, conflict of all types tends to involve negative affect. This can be dangerous for groups; even the beneficial type of conflict, when not effectively managed, can easily spiral into more destructive interpersonal attacks and emotional outbursts (relationship conflict). Indeed, there is some research to suggest that conflict accompanied by negative affect might hinder creativity (Kurtzberg & Amabile, 2010). Relationship conflict was detrimental regardless of the type of task the group was performing. Personal problems that were considered petty were seen as detrimental to satisfaction and to the group's long-term survival (Jehn, 1995). Relationship conflict undermines team functioning to the degree that anger and frustration impede effective communication within the team and reduce team members’ receptiveness to each other’s ideas (Hülsheger et al., 2009).

13

Data Collection and Methodology

The decision was made to use meta-analytic techniques to examine a number of meta-factors related to one of the two particular focal construct, these being creativity and productivity of implementation. The present study explores- rather than defines what creativity and productivity of implementation mean in the literature.

Select studies as input for Analysis

The articles used in the works of Hülsheger et al. (2009) were re-evaluated and gathered through the use of Ebscohost using databases such as EconLit, Business Source Premier and PsychArticles. Additional articles were found through Google Scholar. In total 149 studies were found and the next effort was made to ensure that the articles found (1) represented the correct level of analysis, (2) reported a correlation matrix with at least one antecedent of creativity or productivity of implementation. This procedure reduced the number of appropriate studies to 27 due to the absence of correlation matrices or correlations with either creativity or productivity of implementation. A lot of researches had to be dropped because the measured innovation as a variable and did not see a diversity in creativity and productivity of implementation, rendering them unusable for this research.

Protocol for Meta-analysis

14 The formula for the weighted average of correlations corrected for sample size is

where Ni is the sample size of the primary study i. Next, to remedy measurement errors, Cronbach’s alphas were used. The correlation coefficient was divided by the product of the square root of the reliability of the meta-factor and the square root of the reliability of creativity or productivity of implementation. Since reliabilities were not always reported, they were reconstructed by using the reliability distribution (Hunter & Schmidt, 1990). The formula for real population correlation is

where Ā is the compound reliability correction factor; √Rxx is the average of the square roots of

reliabilities of independent variables composing a given meta-factor; and √Ryy is the average of

15

Results

The meta-analysis started with 14 meta-factors that would predict team exploration, team exploitation and hopefully both, team ambidexterity. Unfortunately two factors had to be discarded because not a single study for analysis of the correlation with creativity was present (See appendix 2). This resulted in 12 meta-factors as listed in table 1.

Table 1. Definitions of the 12 Meta-factors

Meta-factors Definitions Selected references

Team size Number of team members

Kimberly & Evanisko (1981)

Team longevity

Extent of how long team members

participate in the team Katz (1982)

Job-relevant diversity

The heterogeneity of team members with respect to job- or task-related

attributes Pelled et al. (1999)

Background diversity

Non-task related differences such as

age, gender or ethnicity Pelled et al. (1999)

Task interdependence

Extent to which team members are dependent on one another to carry out

their tasks and perform effectively Hülsheger et al. (2009)

Goal interdependence

Extent to which team members’ goals and rewards are related in such a way that an individual team member can only reach his or her goal if the other team members achieve their goals as

well Saavedra et al. (1993)

Vision

Vision is an idea of a valued outcome which represents a higher order goal

and a motivating force at work Anderson & West (1996) Participative Safety

Extent of participation in decision

making and intragroup safety Anderson & West (1996) Task Orientation

climate of excellence and constructive

controversy Anderson & West (1996)

Support for Innovation

The expectation, approval and practical support of attempts to introduce new and improved ways of doing things in

the work environment Anderson & West (1996)

Cohesion

The commitment of team members to their work team and their desire to

maintain group membership Lott & Lott (1965) Internal

communication Extent of intra group communication Hülsheger et al. (2009) External

16 *p<.05

Table 2 shows the results of the meta-analysis regarding meta-factors predicting ability for both creativity as well as productivity of innovation. The tables show total N, the aggregate sample size; and k, the number of studies used to build a given meta-factor; and ρ, an estimate of the real population correlation. The spread of the real correlation variance is 95 percent confidence interval (Song et al., 2008). The real variance ([real variance/total variance]*100%) has to be below 30 percent in order for the meta-factor to be homogeneous.

Table 2. Results of the meta-analysis Meta-factor

Creativity N k ρ 95% CI RV % Moderator

Team size 575 5 0.30 (0.15, 0.44) 74 Yes

Team longevity 294 4 0.00 (-0.25, 0.25) 82 Yes

Job-relevant diversity 327 5 0.13 (-0.01, 0.26) 53

Background diversity 211 2 0.03* 0

Task interdependence 1

Goal interdependence 27 2 0.41* 0

Support for innovation 379 5 0.39* 0

Participative safety 67 2 0.24* (0.20, 0.27) 5 Vision 94 2 0.31 (0.21, 0.41) 34 Task orientation 67 2 0.32* 0 Cohesion 159 2 0.16 (-0.02, 0.34) 72 Internal communication 81 2 0.04 (-0.02, 0.11) 15 External communication 1 Meta-factor Productivity of Implementation N k ρ 95% CI RV % Moderator Team size 506 8 0.10 (-0.15, 0.36) 80

Team longevity 432 6 -0.01 (-0.12, 0.11) 48 Yes

Job-relevant diversity 271 4 0.05* (0.01, 0.09) 10

Background diversity 286 3 -0.06* 0

Task interdependence 210 3 0.01* 0

Goal interdependence 210 3 0.19* 0

Support for innovation 1

Participative safety 1

Vision 438 2 0.14* (0.10, 0.18) 26

Task orientation 1

Cohesion 3093 3 0.23* 0

Internal communication 287 4 0.13 (0.01, 0.24) 49 Yes External communication 440 7 0.18 (0.00, 0.37) 68 Yes

Task conflict 150 2 -0.01* 0

17 The results in table 2 indicate that 5 meta-factors regarding creativity and 8 meta-factors regarding the productivity of implementation we found significant. Only the meta-factor goal interdependence was found to be significant and positive for as well the meta-factor creativity (ρ=0.41 p<.05) as productivity of implementation (ρ=0.19 p<.05), providing evidence for hypothesis 6: Goal interdependence is positively related to team ambidexterity.

Moderators

Table 2 shows that 10 of the meta-factors (6 meta-factors for creativity and 4 for productivity of implementation) we found to be heterogeneous. Of these 10 factors we found 5 meta-factors that were able to be divided in subgroups in order to perform a moderator analyses. 2 meta-factors for creativity and 3 for productivity of implementation we used for this moderator analysis. For the other five meta-factors there was insufficient information present in the research to divide the certain meta-factors in subgroups as for example it wasn’t completely clear in what kind of industry the tested teams where measured.

Table 3 shows the results from the moderator analysis. It shows total N, the aggregate sample size; and k, the number of studies used to build a given meta-factor; ρ, an estimate of the real population correlation; and the different subgroups which each have at least two studies. The real variance has to be below 30 percent in order for the factor to be homogeneous. If real variance is less than 30 percent of the total variance of correlations from the primary studies and the remaining variance is likely due to other unknown and uncorrected artifacts, and therefore it can be neglected (Song et al,. 2008).

18 subgroup: mixed teams, with the exception of one study focusing on teams in the electrical industry. The meta-factor internal communication (for productivity of innovation) could be divided into one subgroup: mixed teams, with the exception of one study focusing on R&D teams. The external communication (for productivity of innovation) could be divided into two subgroups: mixed teams and high-technology NPD-teams.

Table 3. Results of the moderator analysis

Meta-factor Moderator ρ N k 95% CI EV

Creativity

Team size

Mixed teams -0.03* 131 3 0

Health Care Teams 0.40* 444 2 0

20

Conclusion & Implications

The results of the meta-analysis indicate that only one of the 12 meta-factors was significant positive for both creativity and productivity of implementation, thus being positive for team ambidexterity. This means that the meta-factor goal interdependence is the only predictor of the team ambidexterity we have found to be significant in this meta-analysis. For five meta-factors we found a positive significant relationship with creativity and for five meta-factors we found a positive significant relationship with productivity of implementation.

Next we found 3 significant negative relations for meta-factors with productivity of implementation. Unfortunately for several meta-factors such as participative safety, task orientation and support for innovation, the results for their relation with creativity were promising but there were no researches that could connect these meta-factors with productivity of implementation. Then a total of 10 meta-factors were found to be heterogeneous and for 5 of these we were able to perform a moderator analysis. We found that there were severe differences in the outcomes of the meta-analysis based on what type of industry a team would perform in and table 3 provides the results after this moderator analysis.

Theoretical and Managerial Implications.

Because 10 meta-factors in the meta-analysis were found to be heterogeneous there is reason to believe that several correlations in studies can be contradictory. Therefore it would be advised to analyze the correlation differences for the various factors that have been proven to be homogeneous, to find out what defines the relationship between the meta-factor and its dependent variable. Explanations could be sought in the various forms of industry a team is operating in, but an analysis of these differences is advisable.

21 team can become ambidextrous and which meta-factors can be used to predict this form of ambidexterity. For example results regarding external communication shown us that the type of industry a team is operating is a very important moderator in assessing the relation of external communication with a teams’ productivity of implementation. Future research could try and identify only high-technology NPD teams and test whether external communication is indeed negatively related to productivity of implementation, whilst for mixed teams it is shown to have a rather positive relation with productivity of implementation.

Whilst the meta-factors support for innovation, vision, participative safety and task orientation all seem to be widely used to measure creativity, few researches in the sample measure their relation with productivity of implementation. A new meta-analysis with a wider variety of researches and articles might find the evidence for the proposed relations between these meta-factors and team-ambidexterity. Another unexpected result that was found, were the findings for the meta-factor background diversity. The relation of background diversity with creativity was a significant positive relation (ρ=0.03 p<.05), while background diversity and productivity of implementation were negatively significant related (ρ=-0.06 p<.05). However the original hypothesis was that background diversity is negatively related to team ambidexterity, there was found evidence of the positive relation with creativity. For managers this implicates that the potential social barrier for minority members that made them reluctant to share ideas with others, do not outweigh the benefits of having different views within a team for creativity (Choi, 2007). Managers should be really careful in selecting team members with similar backgrounds just to avoid the social barriers for minority members, as clearly creativity can be fostered by background diversity.

Limitations

22 lead to results that are more generalizable and fill the research gap that is still in place regarding the predictors of team ambidexterity.

23

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28

Appendix 1

29

Appendix 2

This is a list of discarded factors, due to insufficient information to perform a meta-analysis.

Task Conflict Relational Conflict

Appendix 3

Publication Sources of the articles in the meta-analysis Publication Source

Number of studies in Analysis Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology 2

Administrative Science Quarterly 4

Organization Science 4

Journal of Organizational Behavior 2

Journal of Applied Psychology 2

Small Group Research 1

Personnel Psychology 1

European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology 1

Academy of Management Journal 2

Journal of Management 2

Creativity and Innovation Management 2

Scandinavian Journal of Psychology 1

Journal of Management Information Systems 1

European Journal of Social Psychology 1

The Leadership Quarterly 1