When do teams generate valuable inventions? The moderating role of invention integrality on the effects of expertise similarity, network cohesion, and gender diversity

Abstract

Research has demonstrated that certain team composition factors—high expertise similarity, high network cohesion, and mixed-gender teams—have predominantly negative effects on the teams’ invention outcomes. Yet these factors have also been shown to improve team coordination, which should (in theory) lead to better invention outcomes. We address this tension by highlighting the need to consider the invention's integrality, which increases task interdependencies among team members and thereby strengthens the positive relationship between team coordination and invention value. We hypothesize that (i) the main effects of these team composition factors reduce a team's invention value but, more importantly, that (ii) invention integrality positively moderates those effects. We support these claims with evidence from utility patent data filed in the United States during the period 1983–2015.