The temporal pattern of creativity and implementation in teams

Abstract

Two broad sets of activities underlie team innovation: the creation and the implementation of new ideas. Despite the prevalence of this distinction, the temporal dynamics of creativity and implementation in teams and their relation to successful team innovation are not well understood. Building on and integrating linear phase models and complexity perspectives on the innovation process, we propose a temporal pattern of creativity and implementation that is linked to team innovation. We examine this temporal pattern in a longitudinal study of 76 project teams. Results show that teams engage in creativity throughout the entire life cycle of team projects; however, innovative teams refrain from focusing on implementation in early time frames and increase their focus on implementation over the course of the project. Episodes of unconstrained creativity in early time frames of a project appear to be a critical factor for team innovation. Our research provides a foundation for future research on team innovation that explicitly considers the temporal interplay of creativity and implementation.

Practitioner points

• Creativity is a critical factor for team innovation that is relevant not only in the beginning of a team project but throughout its entire life cycle.
• Teams achieve innovative outcomes if they refrain from focusing on implementation early on and instead allow for prolonged episodes of unconstrained creativity.
• Innovative teams pay attention to the timing of implementation activities and increase their focus on implementation around the mid‐point of a project.

Full text

CREATIVITY AND IMPLEMENTATION IN TEAMS 1
The temporal pattern of creativity and implementation in teams
Kathrin Rosing1, Ronald Bledow2, Michael Frese3, Nataliya Baytalskaya4, Johanna Johnson
Lascano5, and James L. Farr6
Author Note:
1 University of Kassel, Institute of Psychology, Germany
2 Singapore Management University, Lee Kong Chian School of Business, Singapore
3 National University of Singapore Business School, Singapore, and Leuphana University of
Lueneburg, Institute of Management and Organization, Germany
4 Caliper Corp., Research and Development, Princeton, New Jersey, USA
5 Infor Talent Science, Dallas, Texas, USA
6 Pennsylvania State University, Department of Psychology, University Park, Pennsylvania, USA
This manuscript is in press at the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology. It is a
post-review prepublication version of the manuscript. Please refer to the Journal of Occupational
and Organizational Psychology for the proof-read final version of the manuscript. Link:
https://doi.org/10.1111/joop.12226
Please cite as: Rosing, K., Bledow, R., Frese, M., Baytalskaya, N., Johnson Lascano, J., & Farr,
J. (in press). The temporal pattern of creativity and implementation in teams. Journal of
Occupational and Organizational Psychology. doi: 10.1111/joop.12226.
Acknowledgments:
This research was supported by a research grant by the Volkswagen Foundation (II/82 408).
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Kathrin Rosing, University of
Kassel, Institute of Psychology, Hollaendische Str. 36-38, 34127 Kassel, Germany. E-mail:
rosing@uni.kassel.de.

CREATIVITY AND IMPLEMENTATION IN TEAMS 2
The temporal pattern of creativity and implementation in teams
Abstract
Two broad sets of activities underlie team innovation: the creation and the
implementation of new ideas. Despite the prevalence of this distinction, the temporal dynamics
of creativity and implementation in teams and their relation to successful team innovation are not
well understood. Building on and integrating linear phase models and complexity perspectives
on the innovation process, we propose a temporal pattern of creativity and implementation that is
linked to team innovation. We examine this temporal pattern in a longitudinal study of 76 project
teams. Results show that teams engage in creativity throughout the entire lifecycle of team
projects; however, innovative teams refrain from focusing on implementation in early time
frames and increase their focus on implementation over the course of the project. Episodes of
unconstrained creativity in early time frames of a project appear to be a critical factor for team
innovation. Our research provides a foundation for future research on team innovation that
explicitly considers the temporal interplay of creativity and implementation.
Keywords:
Innovation process, linear phase models, complexity, team innovation, creativity,
implementation

CREATIVITY AND IMPLEMENTATION IN TEAMS 3
Practitioner Points
• Creativity is a critical factor for team innovation that is relevant not only in the beginning
of a team project but throughout its entire lifecycle.
• Teams achieve innovative outcomes if they refrain from focusing on implementation
early on and instead allow for prolonged episodes of unconstrained creativity.
• Innovative teams pay attention to the timing of implementation activities and increase
their focus on implementation around the mid-point of a project.

CREATIVITY AND IMPLEMENTATION IN TEAMS 4
Introduction
For many teams in organizations, innovation is a core component of performance (Choi
& Chang, 2009; George, 2007; Shalley, Zhou, & Oldham, 2004). The necessity to innovate is not
limited to teams that were formed for the primary purpose of innovating, such as research and
development (R&D) teams, but extends to many other types of teams, for example project and
service teams who accomplish non-routine tasks (Pearce & Ensley, 2004). As competition
among organizations increases and change within organizations accelerates, teams and
individuals are expected to contribute to organizational innovation more and more (Baer,
Leenders, Oldham, & Vadera, 2010; Madjar, Greenberg, & Chen, 2011). However, not all teams
are able to deliver highly innovative outcomes. Some teams fail at innovating because they focus
on generating ideas and fail to move forward and realize their ideas, while others fail because
they move ahead too quickly and do not create anything original. To be successful, teams need to
balance between developing original ideas and focusing on getting things done.
The distinction between creating ideas and getting things done is reflected in the
definition of innovation as the generation and implementation of new and useful ideas (Amabile,
1988; West & Farr, 1990; Woodman, Sawyer, & Griffin, 1993). In accordance with this
definition, most researchers agree that two broad sets of activities underlie team innovation:
creativity refers to the generation, evaluation, and selection of ideas; implementation involves
acting upon and realizing ideas (e.g., Amabile, 1988; Farr, Sin, & Tesluk, 2003; Kanter, 1988;
West, 2002b). To achieve team innovation—which we understand as innovative outcomes teams
produce, such as original and useful new products or services—teams need to engage in both
types of activities. However, the temporal pattern of creativity and implementation through

CREATIVITY AND IMPLEMENTATION IN TEAMS 5
which teams achieve highly innovative outcomes is neither well understood nor has it been
subject to a detailed empirical examination.
Theoretical models of the innovation process outline how the timing of (and changes in)
creativity and implementation may be related to team innovation. On a general level, two
theoretical perspectives can be distinguished that offer competing descriptions of the temporal
pattern of creativity and implementation. The linear perspective assumes a sequence of distinct
phases that presumably follow each other step-by-step from creativity to implementation (e.g.,
Amabile, 1988; Farr, et al., 2003), whereas the complexity perspective assumes that creativity
and implementation are intertwined and unfold in a cyclical and chaotic manner (e.g., Schroeder,
Van de Ven, Scudder, & Polley, 1989). There appears to be implicit agreement in the literature
that both perspectives contain some validity and that innovation processes exhibit linear as well
as chaotic features. However, this implicit agreement does not specify in which respect both
perspectives are valid. Moreover, empirical studies have not yet disentangled the interplay
between creativity and implementation (Baer, 2012; Peralta, Lopes, Gilson, Lourenço, & Pais,
2015). Indeed, most empirical studies treat innovation as an outcome rather than a process
(Knight, 2015) and do not distinguish between creativity and implementation. Moreover,
innovation as a process (i.e., creativity and implementation activities) is often confounded with
innovation as an outcome (i.e., team innovation, such as innovative products). Consequently,
evidence on how teams manage creativity and implementation in such a way that innovative
outcomes emerge is sparse. Finally, the few empirical studies that provide a detailed examination
of innovation processes have taken a descriptive approach (Cheng & Van de Ven, 1996;
Eindhoven & Vinacke, 1952; King, 1992), but do not offer a rigorous test of how different
patterns of creativity and implementation relate to team innovation as an outcome.

CREATIVITY AND IMPLEMENTATION IN TEAMS 6
To address this gap and to further the understanding of how innovation emerges in teams,
this article critically analyzes the assumptions underlying current models of the innovation
process. We argue that the complexity and the linear perspective both shed light on the
innovation process and that each perspective alone is incomplete (Bledow, Frese, Anderson,
Erez, & Farr, 2009). The complexity perspective neglects linear-sequential features—most
notably that idea creation precedes idea implementation; the linear perspective oversimplifies the
innovation process and fails to consider that teams frequently move back and forth between
creativity and implementation and can engage in both activities simultaneously. A critical task
for research is thus to identify and integrate the features of both perspectives that are valid to
predict the emergence of team innovation.
Toward this goal, the current study attempts to identify the temporal pattern of creativity
and implementation that supports team innovation. We develop hypotheses by drawing from
both theoretical perspectives, contrasting their assumptions, and evaluating their theoretical
plausibility in light of psychological research. We test these hypotheses in a longitudinal study
with project teams and predict the level of innovation a team achieves with the temporal pattern
of creativity and implementation it engages in. The study thereby contributes to the literature in
several meaningful ways. First, it makes a theoretical contribution by integrating competing
theoretical perspectives on the innovation process. Such an integration is necessary as existing
theoretical perspectives highlight different aspects of the innovation process and are based on
partly conflicting assumptions. Second, using a longitudinal study design, we provide an
empirical test of major assumptions implied by the theoretical perspectives on the innovation
process. Such an empirical test is relevant because rigorous empirical tests are scarce despite the
long tradition of theoretical models of innovation processes (Cheng & Van de Ven, 1996;

CREATIVITY AND IMPLEMENTATION IN TEAMS 7
Eindhoven & Vinacke, 1952; King, 1992). Third, our study provides relevant information for
innovative teams on how to structure innovation processes in terms of the timing of and change
in creativity and implementation activities. In the following paragraphs, we first review models
of the innovation process and evaluate the empirical evidence. Building on these models, we then
draw from research on the psychological underpinnings of creativity and implementation to
formulate hypotheses.
Theoretical Models of the Innovation Process
Models of the innovation process usually emphasize one of two perspectives: the linear
perspective or the complexity perspective. The linear perspective is expressed by phase models
of innovation. These models outline a number of phases that a team has to go through in a linear
order to develop innovative outcomes, such as new products and improved processes (Lubart,
2001). For example, the phase model by Farr, Sin, and Tesluk (2003) describes four sequential
phases that logically build on each other. In the first phase, teams identify and define the problem
they need to work on (problem identification). In the next step, teams come up with ideas to
solve the problem previously identified (idea generation). These ideas are then discussed and
evaluated to find the idea that best solves the problem (idea evaluation). The selected idea is
finally put into action and implemented in the last phase of the process (implementation).
Although phase models differ in the number and the specific content of phases, they all comprise
the normative assumption that closely following the defined ideal sequence of phases will result
in better outcomes. Most authors of phase models, however, acknowledge a certain circularity or
recursiveness of phases and allow for some overlap between different phases (Amabile, 1988;
Farr, et al., 2003; Lubart, 2001). For instance, the recent revision of Amabile’s original

CREATIVITY AND IMPLEMENTATION IN TEAMS 8
componential model of creativity and innovation now explicitly incorporates feedback loops
(Amabile & Pratt, 2016).
Despite their intuitive appeal, linear phase models are an oversimplification of the
innovation process. Indeed, some authors have questioned the existence of distinct phases
altogether and have instead argued that activities such as creativity and implementation are
interrelated processes and team innovation is the result of a non-linear process characterized by
chaos and complexity rather than by a predictable sequence of phases (Anderson, De Dreu, &
Nijstad, 2004; Bledow, et al., 2009; King, 1992; Schroeder, et al., 1989; Van de Ven, Polley,
Garud, & Venkataraman, 1999). Schroeder et al.’s (1989) model of the innovation process
exemplifies this complexity perspective. It does not assume a fixed sequence of events, but rather
“convergent, parallel, and divergent streams of activity” (Schroeder, et al., 1989, p. 113). Initial
ideas often diverge into several different paths that may or may not be conjunctive. In addition,
setbacks and surprises are inherent parts of innovation and are critical for the final outcome
(Schroeder, et al., 1989). The complexity perspective suggests that teams cannot succeed by
adhering to a predefined sequence of activities. Rather they need to be prepared to move back
and forth between creativity and implementation contingent on an unpredictable pattern of
requirements that unfold over time (Bledow, et al., 2009; Schroeder, et al., 1989).
Despite their differences, the linear and the complexity perspectives share two basic
assumptions. First, they both view innovation processes as composed of different sets of
activities, at the most basic level creativity and implementation (West, 2002b). Second, these
activities are assumed to be at least partly interdependent, with phase model researchers
assuming less interdependence than researchers who emphasize complexity. However, when it
comes to the temporal management of creativity and implementation (i.e., when and to what

CREATIVITY AND IMPLEMENTATION IN TEAMS 9
extent teams should engage in these activities), the two perspectives differ significantly. While
the linear perspective proposes a linear sequence of creativity and implementation, the
complexity perspective suggests that both creativity and implementation occur throughout the
process and teams constantly cycle through creativity and implementation in an iterative manner
(Bledow, et al., 2009; Harvey, 2014; Van de Ven & Poole, 1995). Thus, following the
complexity perspective, the temporal order of creativity and implementation is unpredictable.
Figure 1 contrasts the assumptions about the temporal relation of creativity and implementation
according to the linear (Panel A) and the complexity perspective (Panel B). Specifically, the
linear perspective implies an increase in implementation and a decrease in creativity over time.
In contrast, the complexity perspective implies high levels of both creativity and implementation
throughout innovation projects, with many unpredictable fluctuations (as represented by the
curves in the trajectories). The few existing studies which try to describe the innovation process
empirically are based on a few case studies and can neither confirm or nor reject either model
(Cheng & Van de Ven, 1996; Eindhoven & Vinacke, 1952; King, 1992). For example, in two
case studies, Cheng and Van de Ven (1996) found that innovation projects started with complex
non-linear patterns of activities and outcomes and ended with periodic (i.e., linear) patterns of
the same activities. In seven cases of innovation in a hospital ward, King (1992) found evidence
for the complexity perspective, but could not completely reject the linear perspective. The
limited empirical evidence thus suggests that there is some truth in both perspectives.
Importantly, all the empirical studies mentioned followed a descriptive approach. In other words,
none of these studies linked the temporal pattern of innovation activities a team engaged in to the
level of innovation in the outcome the team produced.
(Figure 1 about here)

CREATIVITY AND IMPLEMENTATION IN TEAMS 10
We next integrate features of both perspectives to specify a pattern of creativity and
implementation that results in team innovation. Specifically, we argue that the temporal
trajectories for creativity and implementation differ (see Figure 1, Panel C). The creativity
trajectory is in line with the complexity perspective, but deviates from what is suggested by the
linear perspective. Innovative outcomes require that teams engage in a high level of creativity
throughout the process and do not reduce creativity once an idea is found that is deemed “good
enough” to be implemented as implied by the linear perspective. The implementation trajectory,
on the other hand, is in line with the linear perspective. Teams need to refrain from
implementation in early time frames and increase their focus on implementation over time.
Teams may thus need to resist the temptation to engage in implementation early on to enable
periods of unconstrained creativity that lay the foundation for innovative outcomes. In the
following paragraphs, we develop this line of argument in detail and derive hypotheses drawing
on research on the psychological underpinnings of creativity and implementation.
Hypotheses Development
In the following, we use a broad conceptualization of creativity that comprises the
identification of problems or opportunities, the generation of ideas as well as the evaluation of
ideas (Amabile, 1983; Montag, Maertz, & Baer, 2012; Mumford, Mobley, Reiter‐Palmon,
Uhlman, & Doares, 1991). Creativity is supported by an open mindset that allows team members
to develop and discuss a variety of problem solutions without rash commitment to any one idea
(Fujita, Gollwitzer, & Oettingen, 2007; Heckhausen & Gollwitzer, 1987). As a result, the team
can explore a variety of different approaches and directions as they search for a novel solution
that is not yet determined. Team members take different perspectives (Grant & Berry, 2011;
Hoever, van Knippenberg, van Ginkel, & Barkema, 2012), search for, exchange, and interpret

CREATIVITY AND IMPLEMENTATION IN TEAMS 11
new information (Gong, Cheung, Wang, & Huang, 2012; Li, Maggitti, Smith, Tesluk, & Katila,
2013), recombine and integrate knowledge (Baer, 2010; Mumford, 2000; Mumford & Gustafson,
1988; Zhou, Shin, Brass, Choi, & Zhang, 2009), and consider remote alternatives (Mednick,
1962; Rietzschel, Nijstad, & Stroebe, 2007; Simonton, 2003). Rather than settling on the first
ideas that come to mind, team members focused on creativity display ambivalence toward
alternative courses of action, discard some ideas, and refine other ideas in an iterative manner.
Overall, teams will be oriented towards mastering the challenge of finding original solutions and
towards learning from errors and failure (Rivkin & Siggelkow, 2003).
In early time frames, such as the first days or weeks of a project, the foundation is laid for
whether or not an innovative outcome will be developed. Teams lay this foundation if they
engage in unconstrained creativity and take time to generate many ideas and explore different
directions (Diehl & Stroebe, 1987; Simonton, 1997). In these early time frames, teams need to
reconfigure and integrate diverse knowledge from different sources, which is necessary to
develop something unique and original (A. Taylor & Greve, 2006; West, 2002b; Zhou, et al.,
2009). Thus, a high level of creativity early in the project is required for successful team
innovation. Indeed, the linear and the complexity perspective concur that creativity is highly
relevant in early time frames of innovation projects. Thus, we hypothesize:
Hypothesis 1: The level of creativity in early time frames is positively related to team
innovation.
In contrast to creativity, the defining characteristic of implementation is that a team has
committed to specific goals which regulate and guide its activity (Locke, 2000). The focus is
“closed” rather than “open”. That is, implementation is less open to new approaches and new
information, but rather supported by an action-oriented mindset that is focused on execution and

CREATIVITY AND IMPLEMENTATION IN TEAMS 12
goal attainment (Gollwitzer, 1990; Gollwitzer, Heckhausen, & Steller, 1990). Such a mindset is
closed in the sense that it is narrow and biased in supporting only those processes in a team that
lead to attainment of the activated goal and suppressing alternative processes that distract from
goal achievement (Beckmann & Kuhl, 1984; S. E. Taylor & Gollwitzer, 1995). In other words,
new information will be used mainly to confirm decisions instead of openly searching for new
information (Rivkin & Siggelkow, 2003). When fully engaged in implementation, a team will
not consider remote alternatives and different perspectives as long as they are not of immediate
usefulness for the goal that is pursued (Baumann, Kuhl, & Kazén, 2005; Gollwitzer, 2003). In
such a mindset, teams focus on getting things done and are more concerned with displaying high
performance than with learning (Rivkin & Siggelkow, 2003).
In early time frames of an innovation project, teams will benefit if they refrain from
quickly moving to the action-oriented mindset distinctive of implementation. They will then be
able to concentrate on unconstrained ideation and the development of highly original ideas.
However, it should be noted that refraining from premature implementation does not imply the
absence of implementation altogether. In early time frames of a project, teams may display
episodes of implementation, for instance, if teams perform systematic tests about the feasibility
of previously developed ideas (Kristensson & Magnusson, 2010; Manske & Davis, 1968). Teams
who concentrate on ‘getting things done’ in early time frames, however, will ‘close their mind’
and be more likely to settle on first ideas that come to mind. These first ideas are not based on a
thorough consideration of alternatives and are unlikely to be highly original (Meadow, Parnes, &
Reese, 1959; Osborn, 1953). Moving to closure too early in the process has detrimental effects
on creativity. For example, experimental work by Chirumbolo and colleagues (Chirumbolo, Livi,
Mannetti, Pierro, & Kruglanski, 2004; Chirumbolo, Mannetti, Pierro, Areni, & Kruglanski,

CREATIVITY AND IMPLEMENTATION IN TEAMS 13
2005) demonstrated that teams with high need for closure produced fewer ideas as well as less
creative ideas than teams characterized by a lower need of closure. This research suggests that a
high level of implementation can hinder the simultaneous development of highly original ideas.
A closed implementation mindset severely limits the potential of a team to further experiment
and explore alternatives. Teams that focus on implementation initially are therefore likely to
simply apply existing knowledge using a similar solution to what they have used in the past or
copy a solution from someone else. Following the linear perspective, but in contrast to the
complexity perspective, we therefore hypothesize:
Hypothesis 2: The level of implementation in early time frames is negatively related to
team innovation.
As compared to early time frames of a project, the relevance of implementation increases
as a team progresses with a project. In order to deliver an innovative product and not merely an
original idea, implementation activities need to gain momentum at some point during the project
(Baer, 2012; West, 2002a). Over time, the team’s mindset needs to become more and more
focused on realizing the solution it has developed. Implementation also serves the function of an
elaborate reality check as feedback about the feasibility and deficiencies of ideas (Kristensson &
Magnusson, 2010; Manske & Davis, 1968). As a project progresses, these reality checks become
increasingly important because the time that remains to make adjustments diminishes.
Implementation activities integrate the stream of ideas a team commits to and culminate in the
final project outcome. If teams fail to start acting on their ideas at some point, they will not be
able to meet project deadlines and present an innovative outcome at the end of the project
(Gersick, 1988, 1989). Therefore, following the linear perspective but deviating from the
complexity perspective, we hypothesize:

CREATIVITY AND IMPLEMENTATION IN TEAMS 14
Hypothesis 3: An increase in implementation is positively related to team innovation.
As implementation gains importance over the course of a team project, creativity does not
lose importance at an equal rate. While teams work on an idea, this idea is never complete and
developed in all its details. It needs to be refined, reshaped, and adapted during the process of
implementation (Paulus, 2002). Otherwise, the degree of elaboration and differentiation of an
initial idea will be low and it cannot be translated into a deliverable outcome. Thus, our line of
reasoning contradicts the assumptions of the linear perspective and especially of Ford and
Sullivan (2004) who suggest that creativity after the midpoint of a project hurts team
performance. In contrast, we propose that creativity is required even after a team has decided on
the one idea they will pursue to adapt and reshape the idea so it may be implemented.
Creativity is also necessary throughout a project because the likelihood of setbacks
increases as a team progresses, especially when ideas are highly original and pre-existing
schemata of how to realize ideas cannot be utilized (Schroeder, et al., 1989). As innovation
processes are inherently risky and uncertain, failure is to be expected (Sharma, 1999). Creativity
is thus needed to handle problems and find solutions and ideas for how to solve problems and
overcome hurdles (Hargadon & Bechky, 2006). Sometimes teams even need to go back to the
drawing board when they find that their initial idea is not feasible or appropriate. For instance,
Cheng and Van de Ven (1996) provide evidence for the occurrence of creative and explorative
episodes even in later time frames within innovation projects. Moreover, Farh, Lee, and Farh
(2010) showed in a study of project teams that team creativity was unrelated to project phase;
thus, teams engaged in equal amounts of creativity in earlier and later phases of a project.
Although these studies did not explicitly link creativity in later time frames to team innovation,

CREATIVITY AND IMPLEMENTATION IN TEAMS 15
this research shows that, on a descriptive level, creativity does not necessarily decrease over
time.
Taken together, in line with the complexity perspective and contradicting the linear
perspective, we assume that teams need to maintain a high degree of creativity throughout their
projects. Decreasing the degree of creativity over the course of a project will hurt team
innovation. Thus, we hypothesize:
Hypothesis 4: A decrease in creativity is negatively related to team innovation.
Method
Sample and Design
We tested our model in a sample of applied innovation projects that engineering students
worked on for about one semester. We used a repeated measures design with 3 to 6 observations
depending on the length of the projects. The number of working days between observations was
held constant for each team. In most cases, the time span between two observations was two
weeks. We only used those observations where at least two team members answered the
questionnaire. The mean number of observations was 3.8 per team. Some of our analyses
required a constant number of observations between teams. For these analyses, we utilized the
three times frames of each team project that are theoretically most relevant: the first two weeks
(T1), the two weeks around the midpoint of each project (T2), and the last two weeks (T3). For
all other analyses, we utilized all observations that were available per team.
The selection of the right time frame in which behavioral patterns are studied is a critical
decision in longitudinal research (Mitchell & James, 2001). To address our research question, we
needed to capture systematic changes in creativity and implementation over the entire course of
the teams’ lifecycles. We chose a time frame of two weeks and asked team members repeatedly

CREATIVITY AND IMPLEMENTATION IN TEAMS 16
to report their activities during the time frame of the previous two weeks. As a result, we were
able to examine systematic changes over the course of the entire project on a level of temporal
resolution that matches our theoretical line of argument. That is, we did not focus on the rapid
fluctuations in creativity and implementation as they unfold for instance in a single team meeting
but rather on the overall level of creativity and implementation in a two week time frame, in
which we expected reliable differences within and between teams.
Our sampling strategy was as follows: We contacted engineering faculty at one public US
university whose course requirements included applied innovation projects. We introduced our
study during regular class sessions in the courses of the instructors who agreed to participate.
Students willing to participate in our study provided us with their e-mail addresses. All
questionnaires were administered online and students were invited to participate by e-mail
reminders.
We utilized student teams instead of professional teams in organizations so that we could
obtain a more detailed picture of the innovation process with more observations than would have
been feasible to obtain in a professional work setting. In addition, as our goal was to map the
entire innovation process and not only parts of it, we decided to study the shorter student project
cycles which typically lasted only one semester. We needed to study projects with a clear
beginning and a clear end to address our hypotheses; the project cycle of professional R&D
teams is highly variable and can last from a few weeks to several years. The student teams
worked on real life problems that were otherwise comparable to problems of professional teams.
The projects, for example, included developing different types of wind turbines or redesigning
electric toothbrushes.

CREATIVITY AND IMPLEMENTATION IN TEAMS 17
Our sample consisted of 76 teams with 228 engineering students (the 76 teams consisted
of 312 team members in total; 73% response rate). Mean team size was 4.1, ranging from 3-7
individuals per team. The mean age of the students was 18.8 years (SD = 1.8; range 16 to 35
years) and 15.7% of the students were female.
Measures
We measured creativity and implementation with items that we developed from the
descriptions of four innovation phases by Farr et al. (2003): problem identification, idea
generation, idea evaluation, and idea implementation. Using a referent-shift consensus model
(Chan, 1998), items referred to the activities a team had performed during the last two week
period. All items are listed in Appendix A. Participants were asked whether the team had
engaged in the respective activities in the last two weeks and answered on a 5-point scale ranging
from 1 =“very false” to 5 = “very true”. Scales were aggregated from the individual to the team
level for each observation. Indices of agreement for the four scales are reported in Table 1. ICCs
were low at T3, due to low between-group variance within the homogeneous sample. However,
as rwg(j)s were of an acceptable size, aggregation to the group level was justified. Internal
reliabilities (Cronbach’s α) for the four scales at the individual level were .85 for problem
identification, .87 for idea generation, .84 for idea evaluation, and .96 for idea implementation.
(Table 1 about here)
We conducted a series of multilevel confirmatory factor analyses to examine the factor
structure of the four innovation activities of the Farr et al. (2003) model to decide whether the
activities could be collapsed into one creativity and one implementation factor to represent the
two theoretically relevant variables. Building on broad conceptualizations of creativity that go
beyond idea generation and include the formulation of a problem or an opportunity as well as the

CREATIVITY AND IMPLEMENTATION IN TEAMS 18
evaluation and selection of ideas (see, for example, Montag, et al., 2012), we expected problem
identification, idea generation, and idea evaluation to load on one common creativity factor.
Multilevel confirmatory factor analyses were necessary as multiple observations (level 1) were
nested within each team (level 2). Several indices were used to assess model fit: standardized
root mean squared residual (SRMR), Comparative Fit Index (CFI), and root mean squared error
of approximation (RMSEA). A CFI value of .95 or higher, a SRMR value of .08 or lower, and a
RMSEA value of .06 or lower are indicative of good model fit (Hu & Bentler, 1999). To
compare models, we used the Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC). Lower BIC values indicate
better model fit (Schwarz, 1978).
First, we specified a four-factor model with problem identification, idea generation, idea
evaluation, and implementation as separate factors (Model 1). Second, we specified a
hierarchical model with two second-order factors: we combined problem identification, idea
generation, and idea evaluation into a second-order creativity factor (Model 2) and
implementation as a separate factor. Third, we specified a one-factor model with all items
loading on the same factor (Model 3). The four-factor model showed adequate fit (χ2 [29] =
80.33, p < .001; CFI = .98; RMSEA = .08; SRMR = .04, BIC = 2,132.84). However, the second
model, combining problem identification, idea generation, and idea evaluation into a second-
order factor showed a slightly better fit to the data (χ2 [31] = 82.74, p < .001; CFI = .98; RMSEA
= .08; SRMR = .04, BIC = 2,129.51). In contrast, the one-factor model displayed only poor fit
(χ2 [35] = 666.47, p < .001; CFI = .70; RMSEA = .25; SRMR = .12, BIC = 3,070.69). Taken
together, the two- and four-factor models yielded nearly identical fit to the data. However, in the
four-factor model, the factors of problem identification, idea generation, and idea evaluation
showed very high intercorrelations (.85 and above). Therefore, we decided to utilize the more

CREATIVITY AND IMPLEMENTATION IN TEAMS 19
parsimonious two second-order factors model to represent the theoretical constructs of creativity
and implementation.
Team innovation was assessed at the end of the project cycle by the instructors of the
student courses. We developed items that assessed the novelty and quality of project outcomes
based on past research that suggests that both novelty and quality are defining characteristics of
innovative outcomes (Amabile, 1983; Anderson, Potočnik, & Zhou, 2014; Oldham &
Cummings, 1996). We adapted published scales to fit our research context (Keller, 2006; West &
Anderson, 1996; Zhou & Oldham, 2001). Instructors rated the novelty and quality of the project
outcome using five items (see Appendix A) with a 5-point scale (Cronbach’s α = .93). We
received ratings of team innovation for a subset of 57 teams (75% of the total sample) because
some instructors did not return the questionnaires and some instructor questionnaires could not
be matched with the respective team members’ questionnaires. Thus, the analyses that included
team innovation are based on the subsample of 57 teams. To make sure that the teams with
ratings of team innovation did not differ in any significant aspects from teams that lacked these
ratings, we compared the two groups of teams on the crucial dimensions of our model: the initial
levels of creativity and implementation as well as the slopes of creativity and implementation.
None of these comparisons yielded significant differences. Hence, we are confident that our
hypotheses tests are not threatened by selection bias.
Results
Preliminary Analyses
Means, standard deviations, and intercorrelations of all study variables are displayed in
Table 2. The table shows that all three observations of creativity were substantially correlated (rs
ranging from .24 to .54), whereas implementation observations over time showed somewhat

CREATIVITY AND IMPLEMENTATION IN TEAMS 20
lower correlations (rs ranging from .27 to .29). Teams that engaged in high levels of creativity in
early time frames also tended to engage in high levels of creativity during later time frames. By
contrast, the levels of implementation a team engaged in during early time frames, around the
midpoint, and at later times were more moderatedly related. In line with the assumption that
creativity and implementation are interdependent, the results reveal strong positive correlations
between the two processes at each observation (T1: r = .57, T2: r = .63, T3: r = .69, all ps <
.001).
(Table 2 about here)
The means and standard deviations of creativity and implementation for T1 through T3 in
Table 2 describe how the two processes developed over time. Figure 2 displays the actual
trajectories of creativity and implementation over time. Neither creativity nor implementation
ever approached zero. Rather, in any given time frame there was some degree of both creativity
and implementation, and change over time in the engagement in each activity was a matter of
degree. The pattern of mean values showed little change in creativity, but an increase in
implementation from T1 to T2 (t = -4.64, p < .001) and no change from T2 to T3 (t = .78, p >
.10). These results provide some preliminary support for the pattern suggested by our model
(Figure 1, Panel C): teams maintained a high level of creativity throughout their innovation
projects and increased the level of implementation. However, this increase in implementation
seemed to take place especially during the first half of the projects.
(Figure 2 about here)
Hypotheses Tests
To test whether the initial level of creativity and implementation as well as change over
time in these processes are related to team innovation, we regressed team innovation on

CREATIVITY AND IMPLEMENTATION IN TEAMS 21
intercepts and change in creativity and implementation over time (cf. Chen, Ployhart, Cooper
Thomas, Anderson, & Bliese, 2011). In the first step, we regressed both processes on time as the
independent variable, using mixed-effect growth models (Bliese & Ployhart, 2002). In these
analyses, we obtained empirical Bayes estimates for intercepts and slopes for each team. The
estimated Bayes intercepts, which result from these two regressions, represent the initial value of
creativity and implementation. In addition, the estimated Bayes slopes represent change over
time in each process. The Bayes estimates for both intercepts and slopes vary between teams. In
the second step, team innovation was regressed on the empirical Bayes estimates obtained in the
first step. With this analysis, we tested whether the initial value and the linear change (i.e., the
rise or fall) in creativity and implementation over time were related to team innovation. In these
analyses, we controlled for group size. As intercepts and slopes of implementation were very
highly correlated (r = -.76), including both variables in the same regression analysis caused
multicollinearity problems. We therefore used independent analyses to test the effects of initial
level and change in creativity and implementation on team innovation (see Table 3 Models 2 and
3, respectively).
(Table 3 about here)
The results of these analyses are summarized in Table 3. As predicted by Hypothesis 1,
which anticipated a positive relationship between the level of creativity in early time frames and
team innovation, the intercept of creativity was significantly related to team innovation in a
positive direction (Model 2: β = .39, p < .05): The higher the initial level of creativity, the more
innovative were the teams. Hypothesis 2 predicted a negative relationship between the level of
implementation in early time frames and team innovation. Accordingly, the intercept of
implementation was significantly negatively related to team innovation (Model 2: β = -.49, p <

CREATIVITY AND IMPLEMENTATION IN TEAMS 22
.01). The lower the initial level of implementation, the more innovative were the teams,
supporting Hypothesis 2. Hypothesis 3 stated that an increase in implementation would be
positively related to team innovation. Change in implementation was indeed positively related to
team innovation (Model 3: β = .40, p < .05), supporting Hypothesis 3. Thus, the more teams
increased the level of implementation during the projects, the more innovative they were.
Finally, Hypothesis 4 stated that a decrease in creativity over time is negatively related to team
innovation. Accordingly, the slope of creativity should be positively related to team innovation.
However, change in creativity was unrelated to team innovation (Model 3: β = -.17, p > .10), so
Hypothesis 4 was not supported. Yet, Table 2 shows a positive correlation, albeit non-significant,
between creativity at T3 and team innovation (r = .21, p = .13). To explore this relationship
further, as a post hoc analysis, we included creativity at T3 as a predictor in the regression
analysis. As creativity at T3 is part of the creativity slope, we used the residual of creativity at T3
when regressed on the slope of creativity to avoid problems of non-independence. As Table 3
shows, creativity at T3 was positively related to team innovation (Model 4: β = .24, p = .08).
Thus, this analysis suggests that a high level of creativity at later times in the innovation process
is beneficial for team innovation.
Additional Analyses
The midpoint has been previously found to be an important concept in theories on team
dynamics (Gersick, 1988, 1989). In addition, our descriptive results revealed that the increase in
implementation mainly took place in the first half of projects. Therefore, we reanalyzed our data
using only observations from the beginning of the projects until the midpoint as well as
observations from the midpoint until the end of the projects in separate analyses. The intercepts
of the analyses using the second half of the projects represent the level of creativity and

CREATIVITY AND IMPLEMENTATION IN TEAMS 23
implementation at the midpoint. Interestingly, results were nearly identical to the original results
for the first half of the projects (see upper part of Table 4 for details), but none of the intercepts
or slopes of creativity and implementation yielded significant results for the second half of the
projects (see lower part of Table 4). That is, while the level of creativity and implementation in
early time frames is related to team innovation, the same is not true for the level of creativity and
implementation around the midpoint of projects. Similarly, while change in implementation from
the beginning until the midpoint is related to team innovation, change in implementation after the
midpoint has no impact on team innovation.
Discussion
In this article, we specified and tested a temporal pattern of creativity and implementation
in the lifecycle of team projects that we expected to result in team innovation. In support of our
hypotheses, teams delivered innovative outcomes if they started out with a high level of
creativity and refrained from an early focus on implementation. Before the mid-point of projects,
there was an increase in implementation activity in those teams who eventually delivered
innovative outcomes. Contrary to our expectation, we could not show that a decrease in
creativity was negatively related to team innovation. However, further analyses confirmed a
positive relationship between creativity at later time frames and team innovation, supporting the
assumption that creativity is critical throughout the lifecycle of team projects.
The temporal pattern of creativity and implementation we derived theoretically and tested
empirically informs the literature on team innovation. Our findings suggest that the linear
perspective on innovation processes overemphasizes the temporal separation of creativity and
implementation into distinct phases, while the complexity perspective on innovation processes
neglects that some degree of separation is necessary. More specifically, a partial separation of

CREATIVITY AND IMPLEMENTATION IN TEAMS 24
creativity from implementation in early time frames of a team project is critical for team
innovation (Amabile, 1988; Farr, et al., 2003). This separation allows for episodes of unrestricted
creativity which are critical if something unique and truly original is to be created. Teams that
focus on implementation too early are likely to merely apply available knowledge and adapt
existing ideas such that conventional outcomes, or at best incremental innovations, result. While
this finding confirms a central tenet of linear phase models, it deviates from a complexity
perspective that questions the existence of predictable sequences of activities.
In line with the complexity perspective, on the other hand, high levels of creativity at
later time frames showed a weak positive association with team innovation. This finding
underlines the assumption of the complexity perspective that innovation projects incorporate
unpredictable developments and setbacks that require new ideas (Schroeder, et al., 1989).
Interestingly, the descriptive results of our study show that the mean level of creativity was never
lower than the mean level of implementation. This observation clearly contradicts the linear
perspective, which assumes a strong focus on implementation towards the end of a project,
which would be indicated by a higher level of implementation than creativity. In contrast, our
results support the assumption of the complexity perspective that in the course of a project, an
idea is never “ready” in the sense that teams can completely concentrate on implementation
without refining or revising the idea (Paulus, 2002). Thus, contrary to suggestions by Ford and
Sullivan (2004) as well as the finding by Knight (2015) that exploratory search after the
midpoint hinders team performance, we did not find any evidence that a decrease in creativity is
necessary for high levels of team innovation.
This discrepancy might be due to different conceptualizations of creativity or different
types of ideas. Whereas Ford and Sullivan’s (2004) argument refers to new contributions that

CREATIVITY AND IMPLEMENTATION IN TEAMS 25
fundamentally alter the main project outcome, our broader conceptualization of creativity
includes many different kinds of ideas. More specifically, creativity in early and later time
frames may be focused on different types of ideas. While early creativity will likely concern the
general product idea that guides the project, later ideas will more likely be supportive of
implementation. For example, later ideas might be developed to change the product in such a
way that implementation is feasible. Additionally, whereas early ideas may be more radical, later
ideas might be incremental in nature. However, as we did not assess the type or radicalness of
ideas in our study, future research needs to explore how ideas might change over a project’s
lifecycle. The type and function of ideas can be studied, for example, by utilizing observational
study designs or by directly asking teams to provide examples of ideas they are currently
working on.
It needs to be noted that the results of our study concerning implementation are more
robust than the results concerning creativity. Specifically, we did not find any zero-order
correlations between the starting level of creativity (i.e., the intercept of creativity and creativity
at T1) and team innovation. Only when controlling for the level of implementation, did we find
support for the assumption that high levels of creativity in early time frames are related to team
innovation. Thus, it seems that the level of creativity relative to implementation is more relevant
for team innovation than the absolute level of creativity. In addition, the slope of creativity was
unrelated to team innovation. Taken together, it seems that the timing of implementation
activities is much more important for team innovation than the timing of creativity. This is
surprising given the predominance of studies concentrating on creativity and the scarcity of
research on implementation, both at the team (West, 2002a) and the individual level (Baer,
2012). In line with earlier calls for research on the implementation side of innovation, our study

CREATIVITY AND IMPLEMENTATION IN TEAMS 26
highlights the importance of explaining not only the antecedents of implementation, but also the
trajectory of implementation over time.
Interestingly, our results seem to be especially relevant for the first half of innovation
projects. Separate analyses for the first and the second halves of projects revealed that the level
of creativity and implementation was relevant for team innovation only at the very beginning of
the projects. In contrast, the level of these activities seemed to be irrelevant around the midpoint.
Moreover, an increase in implementation seemed to be important especially until the midpoint of
the project, whereas an additional increase after the midpoint did not further improve team
innovation. This latter result is in line with earlier work by Gersick (1988, 1989) on team
dynamics that shows that successful teams use a consistent approach to their work after the
midpoint. Our research extends Gersick’s work insofar as we add a content perspective by
focusing on specific innovation activities (Gersick, 1988, 1989). As we did not hypothesize these
differential effects within the first and second halves of innovative projects, future research needs
to focus on additional temporal aspects of the innovation process. Indeed, the interplay between
creativity and implementation can be analyzed at time scales different from the two week time
interval that was the focus of the current study (Mitchell & James, 2001). One can further “zoom
in” and examine the pattern of creativity and implementation in shorter time intervals, for
example by studying in detail the activities during a team meeting. Such a more detailed analysis
will offer additional insights into the interplay of creativity and implementation. For example, it
is possible that the intercorrelation of creativity and implementation will be much lower or even
negative in shorter time intervals as it is more difficult to engage in both behaviors within the
same minute than within the same week. In contrast, it is also possible to “zoom out” and study
the interplay of creativity and implementation at a larger time scale of months or years. For

CREATIVITY AND IMPLEMENTATION IN TEAMS 27
example, teams might migrate between different projects that are focused on either incremental
or radical innovations. We suggest that testing our theoretical assumptions using different time
scales will provide additional valuable insights into the temporal pattern of creativity and
implementation.
Limitations and Future Research
We would like to highlight some potential limitations of the present study. First, the
sample was comprised of university students whose work closely mirrored teams in other
settings. The student teams worked on applied projects with ill-defined problems as is often the
case in professional teams (Mumford, Scott, Gaddis, & Strange, 2002). Project outcomes were
graded by the team supervisors and teams were able to enter school-wide competitions when
they performed highly. Thus, the projects had meaningful consequences for team members.
Nevertheless, particularities of the sample need to be taken into account when generalizing
results. The teams worked together for only up to four months, and the pattern of creativity and
implementation is likely more complex in teams with longer project lifespans and especially in
teams that work together on an ongoing basis. In addition, student teams only had to convince
the instructor of the value of their project outcomes. In contrast, professional teams need to
convince a number of external stakeholders about the value of their products, such as
organizational decision makers and eventually customers. Thus, the student teams were less
dependent on external support and championing of others outside the team to bring a product to
market. In contrast to organizational settings, implementation in the student teams focused on
building prototypes, but did not include the actual production or diffusion of the product.
Nevertheless, the student teams were instructed to keep potential customers in mind.
Furthermore, the educational setting of the study might have influenced the innovation process

CREATIVITY AND IMPLEMENTATION IN TEAMS 28
insofar that instructors introduced structure, feedback, and the necessity to hand in deliverables
during the process. However, such an influence may also be comparable to an organizational
context where team or project leaders ask questions, give feedback, and require teams to meet
deadlines for different milestones.
A second potential limitation concerns the differentiation of creativity and
implementation. We use these concepts as a parsimonious differentiation between two broad
categories of innovation activities. However, innovation models often use more detailed
differentiations of processes or activities. For example, Perry-Smith and Manucci (2017)
differentiate between idea generation and idea elaboration as well as idea championing and idea
implementation. Farr et al. (2003) distinguish between problem identification, idea generation,
and idea evaluation instead of using a broader concept of creativity. Due to high intercorrelations
between these activities we could not separate them in the current study. Future research might
need to focus on shorter time frames to be able to distinguish between the specifics of different
aspects of creativity. Such an analysis should reveal additional information about how the
dynamic interplay of innovation activities produces original outcomes. Similarly, the current
study did not distinguish between different activities related to implementation. For example,
some models of the innovation process distinguish between promoting and realizing ideas
(Janssen, 2000) or between championing and implementing ideas (Perry-Smith & Mannucci,
2017). Utilizing a more detailed differentiation of implementation behaviors will be helpful in
understanding whether there are systematic differences in the internal structure of creativity and
implementation. Additionally, it might be insightful to examine how the engagement in different
implementation activities changes over time.

CREATIVITY AND IMPLEMENTATION IN TEAMS 29
Finally, the high correlation between the intercept and slope of implementation made it
impossible to test the impact of the starting level of and change over time in implementation
simultaneously. This is a problem insofar that we do not know which of the two factors—initial
level or increase, or the combination of both—is the driving force for team innovation. However,
the high correlation may not be a statistical artefact of our sample but an accurate representation
of reality in innovative teams. That is, the starting level of and the change in implementation are
likely to go hand in hand. For teams that start out with a high level of implementation there will
not be a need, or even a possibility, to increase the level of implementation over time; the
product might just not be very innovative. In contrast, teams that start out with only a little
implementation are required to increase the level of implementation in order to deliver any
product at all, whether innovative or not. In order to study the impact of initial level of and
change over time in implementation separately, experimental studies that independently
manipulate both factors are necessary.
A focus on the pattern of creativity and implementation that results in team innovation
holds promising and challenging avenues for future research. First, our line of work informs
research on factors which differentially influence creativity and implementation (Axtell et al.,
2000; Baer, 2012; Somech & Drach-Zahavy, 2013). It might be interesting, for example, to study
how team composition influences the trajectories of creativity and implementation over time,
advancing the knowledge on how team composition is related to team innovation (Miron-
Spektor, Erez, & Naveh, 2011; Perretti & Negro, 2007). Importantly, to comprehensively
understand team innovation, research needs to move away from studying innovation as a
homogenous construct (Baer, 2012) or only as an outcome (Knight, 2015), and focus on the
underlying processes—that is, creativity and implementation—in more detail. For example,

CREATIVITY AND IMPLEMENTATION IN TEAMS 30
factors that are especially relevant for the implementation of innovation in organizations, such as
social support or social networks (Axtell, et al., 2000; Baer, 2012), may affect the trajectory of
implementation by helping teams to increase implementation over time. Moreover, when
studying the antecedents or consequences of creativity and implementation, it is not sufficient to
focus on distinct temporal phases of the innovation process, such as the first or second half of the
project. In contrast, creativity and implementation need to be studied as activities in relation to
when they take place. Finally, our research points to the necessity to not only examine
differential antecedents of the level of creativity and implementation but to also identify the self-
regulatory mechanisms through which teams effectively transition between creativity and
implementation.
Moreover, for many teams in organizations, it needs to be considered that teams often
work together for much longer periods of time on projects that have no clear beginning or end
(Hackman, 1990). In such situations, episodes of unrestricted creativity cannot be confined to an
early time frame. Rather, a team may need to slow down its implementation activities repeatedly
to allow for the formation of new ideas and the reorientation of the direction in which it is
heading. Such performance episodes may appear to outside observers and team members as
unproductive because teams do not pursue a clear goal in a streamlined manner (Gersick, 1988,
1989). Teams may even be tempted to hastily jump to implementation to avoid ambiguous states
in which no progress can be observed. However, such performance episodes may lay the
foundation for innovative outcomes of high originality, which should materialize if teams also
have the capability to initiate well-timed episodes of implementation. Thus, future research needs
to establish to what extent our results hold in other settings than project teams.
Practical Implications

CREATIVITY AND IMPLEMENTATION IN TEAMS 31
Our study suggests that teams can improve their ability to deliver innovative products by
paying attention to when they engage in creativity and implementation and how they manage
transitions between these activities (Marks, Mathieu, & Zaccaro, 2001). Teams who seek to
innovate might be tempted to reduce the complexity of the innovation process by hastily moving
to action to quickly deliver results. An environment of increasing competition and an
accelerating pace within organizations will likely amplify this tendency. The present study
highlights the downsides of the tendency in teams to focus on getting things done early on in a
project’s life cycle. In contrast, teams might also generate numerous ideas without ever being
satisfied with any of them and consequently fail to act on their ideas. We suggest that both
strategies—focusing on getting things done too early or never—will result in low team
innovation. Teams are better advised to slow down their implementation activities in early time
frames of a project to allow for prolonged periods of creativity, but then change their focus to
implementation once the foundation for highly original innovations has been laid. However, a
rather quick change to implementation seems to be important, as increasing implementation
seems to have an especially strong impact before the midpoint of projects.

CREATIVITY AND IMPLEMENTATION IN TEAMS 32
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CREATIVITY AND IMPLEMENTATION IN TEAMS 38
Table 1
Indices of Within-Group Agreement of Innovation Activities
T1
T2
T3
r
wg(j)
a
ICC(1)
ICC(2)
r
wg(j)
a
ICC(1)
ICC(2)
r
wg(j)
a
ICC(1)
ICC(2)
Problem
Identification .91/.82 .19*** .46 .92/.96 .21*** .49 .91/.98 .05 .13
Idea Generation
.94/.91
.24***
.53
.94/.89
.20***
.47
.94/.86
.03
.07
Idea Evaluation
.91/.75
.13*
.35
.91/.64
.18**
.44
.91/.84
.08
.18
Implementation
.90/.74
.34***
.65
.94/.89
.14**
.37
.94/.82
.11†
.25
Note. a Median rwg(j)/Mean rwg(j)
† p < .10, * p < .05, ** p < .01, *** p < .001

CREATIVITY AND IMPLEMENTATION IN TEAMS 39
Table 2
Means, Standard Deviations and Intercorrelations
Variable
Mean
SD
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
1. Team innovation
2.90
.85
-
2. Creativity at T1
4.15
.46
.00
-
3. Creativity at T2
4.25
.50
.09
.47***
-
4. Creativity at T3
4.26
.40
.21
.24*
.54***
-
5. Implementation at T1
3.61
.79
-.25†
.57***
.21†
.15
-
6. Implementation at T2
4.10
.56
-.05
.60***
.63***
.45***
.29*
-
7. Implementation at T3
4.03
.63
.15
.30**
.42***
.69***
.27*
.28*
-
8. Intercept Creativity
4.13
.27
.05
.87***
.80***
.42***
.50***
.69***
.41***
-
9. Intercept Implementation
3.63
.44
-.22†
.62***
.33**
.22†
.91***
.55***
.22†
.61***
-
10. Slope Creativity
.01
.04
.05
-.36**
.19
.68***
-.16
.03
.43***
-.20†
-.17
-
11. Slope Implementation
.06
.06
.27*
-.40***
.03
.27*
-.70***
-.22†
.38**
-.26***
-.76***
.50***
-
12. Group Size
4.13
.75
.07
-.10
.01
.01
-.24*
-.09
.08
-.09
-.33**
.04
.34**
Note. N = 76 (for correlations with team innovation N = 57).
† p < .10, * p < .05, ** p < .01, *** p < .001

CREATIVITY AND IMPLEMENTATION IN TEAMS 40
Table 3
Regression of Team Innovation on Intercept of and Change in Innovation Activities
DV: Team innovation
Model 1
Model 2
Model 3
Model 4
Group Size
.07
.10
.11
.07
Creativity (Intercept)
.39*
Implementation (Intercept)
-.49**
Change in Creativity
-.17
-.16
Change in Implementation
.40*
.41*
Creativity at T3 (Residual)
.24†
R2
.00
.14†
.13†
.18†
ΔR2
.13*
.12†
.05†
Note. N = 57. Standardized regression coefficients are reported.
† p < .10, * p < .05, ** p < .01

CREATIVITY AND IMPLEMENTATION IN TEAMS 41
Table 4
Regression of Team Innovation on Intercept of and Change in Innovation Activities for the First
and Second Halves of Projects
DV: Team innovation
Model 1
Model 2
Model 3
First half of projects (T1 until T2)
Group Size
.07
.08
.07
Creativity (Intercept)
.39*
Implementation (Intercept)
-.53**
Change in Creativity
-.05
Change in Implementation
.30*
R2
.00
.19*
.09
ΔR2
.18**
.09†
Second half of projects (T2 until T3)
Group Size
.07
.05
.04
Creativity (Intercept)
-.05
Implementation (Intercept)
-.09
Change in Creativity
.06
Change in Implementation
.08
R2
.00
.01
.01
ΔR2
.01
.01
Note. N = 57. Standardized regression coefficients are reported.
† p < .10, * p < .05, ** p < .01

CREATIVITY AND IMPLEMENTATION IN TEAMS 42
Figure 1
Comparison of Theoretical Models

CREATIVITY AND IMPLEMENTATION IN TEAMS 43
Figure 2
Actual Trajectories of Creativity and Implementation in Teams

CREATIVITY AND IMPLEMENTATION IN TEAMS 44
APPENDIX A
Innovation Activities
Creativity
We figured out what we needed to do to be successful.a
We developed a better understanding of problems we need to solve.a
We collected ideas.b
We discussed what a solution should look like.b
We came up with new ideas or problem solutions.b
We discussed what ideas we should follow.c
We evaluated different ideas.c
Implementation
We put our plan into action.
We implemented our plans/ideas.
We put our ideas into action.
Note. a problem identification, b idea generation, c idea evaluation.

CREATIVITY AND IMPLEMENTATION IN TEAMS 45
Team Innovation
Compared to other
student projects
in our field, this product (project outcome)…
is a usual and
conventional
solution.
(1)
is a solution that
features only a
few novel aspects.
(2)
has a balance
between
conventional,
usual, and novel
aspects.
(3)
is a solution that
features mostly
novel aspects.
(4)
is completely
novel and does
not at all rely on
conventional
solutions.
(5)
is not creative at
all.
(1)
is somewhat un-
creative.
(2)
is neither creative
nor uncreative.
(3)
is somewhat
creative.
(4)
is very creative.
(5)
is insufficient in
terms of quality
standards.
(1)
falls somewhat
below the quality
standards.
(2)
is acceptable in
terms of quality
standards.
(3)
meets the quality
standards very
well.
(4)
exceeds the
quality standards.
(5)
cannot be applied
in the “real world”
(i.e. in
professional
settings).
(1)
can be applied in
the “real world”
with major
modifications.
(2)
can be applied in
the “real world”
with some
modifications.
(3)
can be applied in
the “real world”
with little
modifications.
(4)
can readily be
applied in the
“real world”.
(5)
Compared to professional projects in our field, this product (project outcome)…
is a usual and
conventional
solution.
(1)
is a solution that
features only a
few novel aspects.
(2)
has a balance
between
conventional,
usual, and novel
aspects.
(3)
is a solution that
features mostly
novel aspects.
(4)
is completely
novel and does
not at all rely on
conventional
solutions.
(5)