Team Innovation

Team innovation is the introduction of new and improved ways of doing things by a team. Creativity and innovation are distinguished in the following ways: creativity refers to new ideas; and innovation (which includes creativity) also requires that creative ideas are put into action, within a team, organization or society. Creativity is the development of ideas; innovation implementation is making them happen in practice. Innovation includes both creativity and implementation therefore.

Figure 1 shows a model of team innovation, which emphasizes the importance of some principal factors examined in earlier chapters (West and Anderson, 1996). The model demonstrates how shared vision, task focus (a commitment to excellence), participative safety and support for innovation, all determine the level of a team’s innovativeness. In research in a wide variety of organizations, my colleagues and I have shown how these four factors are powerful predictors of team innovation (West 2002).