The Influence Of Team Composition On Team Creativity In Research Universities’ Research Teams

With the development of team management studies, relevant studies about the influence and effectiveness of team composition have been springing up gradually concerning multi-displinary studies and theory discussion across organizational behavior, management, psychology, and so on. Research universities as an important part of national science and technology innovation system, have played an increasing role in promoting science and technology innovation with establishing and developing a batch of disciplinary development-oriented and research work-oriented research teams. Composed of research specialist staffs across multiple age, education and research background like, expert scholars, academic pacesetters, research key staffs, Ph.D. and Master’s Degree candidates, technicians and so on, these research teams have been proved to be important strength of scientific research, academic innovation and research personnel training in research universities.Research team member composition in research universities has a significant influence in team construction, operation and task achievement concerning research team’s effective construction and sound development. On the other hand, research team creativity is an important indicator measuring research team’s research innovation ability, research output ability and team effectiveness. Therefore, on the viewing angle of research team construction and management, how to study the influence of team composition on team creativity is the research objective.Specifically, centering on the influence of research team composition on team creativity in research universities and considering the practical situation of research team composition, the research presents general composition types, individual ability and task assignment features. According to multiple case studies and preliminary analysis, the effects of team members’individual ability, role assignment and heterogeneity composition on team creativity have been discussed, and a team composition factor analytical framework and the initial hypothesis are structured. Proceeding from the Big Five Personality theory, the Team Roles theory and diversified team member studies, a theoretical research model has been structured with team members’individual ability, role assignment and heterogeneity composition. Based on an empirical research and statistics analysis on research teams’ composition in research universities, the theoretical model and hypotheses have been tested and verified one by one. The results indicate the positive influence of team member’s personality, knowledge and ability, individual creativity, team leader’s personal and behavioral support and team member’s research experience heterogeneity, and testify the negative influence of team role ambiguity, team member’s gender differences, age heterogeneity and education heterogeneity. Unproved hypotheses and the reasons have also been discussed. According to the research conclusions, reasonable suggestions on research team’s management are proposed around team member selecting, team role assignment and diversified member composition management.