Date of Award

Summer 8-2023

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Education

First Advisor

Marita Apter-Desselles

Abstract

While the nature of teamwork in organizations is ever-evolving, the utilization of teams in some form has continued to increase over the past several decades. While creativity is generally regarded as an individual-level phenomenon, innovation tends to occur as an emergent process at the team level, so rather than only hiring and rewarding star performers, organizations should cultivate and protect the team’s climate for innovation. A particularly impactful contextual factor in team climate is the team leader’s behavior. Therefore, the team leader’s contribution to the climate should work to promote innovation rather than discourage it. A cross-sectional, correlational study surveyed participants who identified as part of a work-related team. They were asked about the motivational states their team leaders encourage (the motivational micro-climate created by the leader) and about their team’s climates of innovation and psychological safety. A regression-based analysis found the relationship between a psychologically diverse micro-climate encouraged by the team leader and the team’s climate of innovation to be significant (B = 0.11, 95.00% CI [0.10, 0.13], p < .001). The analysis also considered the potential mediating role of psychological safety, and a significant indirect effect was found (β = 0.037, 95.00% CI [0.012, 0.07]). Additional relationships between selected aspects of the motivational micro-climate (specifically, purpose and change orientation) and selected factors of innovation (specifically, team orientation and vision) were examined with a moderated mediation model through conditional process analysis. Notable findings here were a positive relationship between the leader micro-climate of. iv change orientation and the team climate of innovation (B = 0.09, 95.00% CI [0.05, 0.13], p < .001), that was partially mediated by the team climate of innovation factor, task orientation (B = 0.10, 95.00% CI [0.06, 0.13], p< .001).

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