Impacts of a Knowledge Sharing Climate and Interdisciplinary Knowledge Integration on Innovation

摘要

Interdisciplinary teams are often employed with the expectation of sparking innovation in their diverse range of knowledge. Empirical studies on functional diversity, however, have shown inconclusive results. The literature also illustrates that the secret, competitive, and multi-disciplinary atmosphere makes individuals reluctant to share their knowledge. To fill these research gaps, this study is to explore how innovation can be more effectively facilitated despite different mental models of interdisciplinary team members. By drawing upon social capital theory, this study presents a knowledge sharing climate (i.e. trusting relationships, openness, and learning orientations) and how the three dimensions differently influence innovation. This study also shows how interdisciplinary knowledge integration mediates between functional diversity and innovation to reconcile the mixed signal of the literature. Data were collected from 202 individual team members, and structure equation modelling was employed to test the research model. Empirical results indicate that innovation is significantly affected by interdisciplinary knowledge integration and openness. Functional diversity and trusting relationships do not have direct impacts on innovation, but they are mediated by interdisciplinary knowledge integration. The findings of this study have theoretical and practical implications which are discussed in the paper.