Getting the most out of multidisciplinary teams: A multi-sample study of team innovation in health care

• Published in: Journal of occupational and organizational psychology Vol. 79; no. 4; pp. 553 - 567
• Main Authors: Fay, Doris, Borrill, Carol, Amir, Ziv, Haward, Robert, West, Michael A.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford, UK Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.12.2006; British Psychological Society; John Wiley & Sons, Inc
• Subjects: Biological and medical sciences; Evaluation; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Health care industry; Health care teams; Human resource management; Hypotheses; Hypothesis testing; Impact analysis; Innovation; Innovations; Interdisciplinary team work; Medical personnel; Occupational psychology; Organizational behavior; Outcomes; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Studies; Teams; Work condition. Job performance. Stress; Work groups; United Kingdom; United Kingdom > UK; Human; Innovation; Health staff; Health; Work team; Quality; Work; Performance; Multidisciplinary
• ISSN: 0963-1798; 2044-8325
• DOI: 10.1348/096317905X72128

Driven by the assumption that multidisciplinarity contributes positively to team outcomes teams are often deliberately staffed such that they comprise multiple disciplines. However, the diversity literature suggests that multidisciplinarity may not always benefit a team. This study departs from the notion of a linear, positive effect of multidisciplinarity and tests its contingency on the quality of team processes. It was assumed that multidisciplinarity only contributes to team outcomes if the quality of team processes is high. This hypothesis was tested in two independent samples of health care workers (N = 66 and N = 95 teams), using team innovation as the outcome variable. Results support the hypothesis for the quality of innovation, rather than the number of innovations introduced by the teams.