Abstract
In the highly dynamic and competitive environment, firms increasingly rely on teams and their members’ creativity to survive and succeed. Trust has been found to be the critical antecedent of team creativity, whereas what forms of trust and to what extent the trust can affect team creativity are still unexplored comprehensively. In this respect, the article synthesizes three different types of trust and explores their effect mechanisms on team creativity as well as the role of knowledge sharing in mediating the relationship between trust and team creativity. A survey is conducted to a sample of 61 project teams comprising 409 members from small and medium-sized Chinese firms in Dalian. The findings suggest that there exist different ways for trust to affect team creativity through knowledge sharing, of which calculative trust and institutional trust improve the team creativity by sharing the explicit knowledge, and relational trust ad hoc cognitive trust positively contributes to team creativity through sharing the tacit knowledge.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Amabile, T.M., Conti, R., Coon, H., Lazenby, J., Herron, M.: Assessing the work environment for creativity. Acad. Manag. J. 39(5), 1154–1184 (1996)
Barczak, G., Lassk, F., Mulki, J.: Antecedents of team creativity: an examination of team emotional intelligence, team trust and collaborative culture. Creativity Innov. Manag. 19(4), 332–345 (2010)
Baron, R.M., Kenny, D.A.: The moderator–mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 51(6), 1173–1182 (1986)
Bidault, F., Castello, A.: Trust and creativity: understanding the role of trust in creativity-oriented joint development. R&D Manag. 39(3), 259–270 (2009)
Bock, G.W., Kim, Y.G.: Breaking the myths of rewards: an exploratory study of attitudes about knowledge sharing. In: PACIS 2001 Proceedings, p. 78 (2001)
Bock, G.W., Zmud, R.W., Kim, Y.G., Lee, J.N.: Behavioral intention formation in knowledge sharing: examining the roles of extrinsic motivators, social-psychological forces, and organizational climate. MIS Q. 29, 87–111 (2005)
Butler, J.K.: Toward understanding and measuring conditions of trust: evolution of a conditions of trust inventory. J. Manag. 17(3), 643–663 (1991)
Chae, S., Seo, Y., Lee, K.C.: Effects of task complexity on individual creativity through knowledge interaction: a comparison of temporary and permanent teams. Comput. Hum. Behav. 42(4), 138–148 (2015)
Chen, M.H., Chang, Y.C., Hung, S.C.: Social capital and creativity in R&D project teams. R&D Manag. 38(1), 21–34 (2008)
Chu, H.N.: The research of enterprise interpersonal trust and its impact on knowledge sharing in Chinese culture environment. Doctoral Dissertation, Huazhong University of Science and Technology (2008). (in Chinese)
Gulati, R.: Does familiarity breed trust? The implications of repeated ties for contractual choice in alliances. Acad. Manag. J. 38, 85–112 (1995)
Holste, J.S., Fields, D.: Trust and tacit knowledge sharing and use. J. Knowl. Manag. 14(1), 128–140 (2010)
Lee, D.S., Seo, Y.W., Lee, K.C.: Individual and team differences in self-reported creativity by shared leadership and individual knowledge in an e-learning environment. Information 14(9), 2931–2946 (2011)
Lin, M.J.J., Hung, S.W., Chen, C.J.: Fostering the determinants of knowledge sharing in professional virtual communities. Comput. Hum. Behav. 25(4), 929–939 (2009)
McAllister, D.J.: Affect-and cognition-based trust as foundations for interpersonal cooperation in organizations. Acad. Manag. J. 38(1), 24–59 (1995)
Mayer, R.C., Davis, J.H., Schoorman, F.D.: An integrative model of organizational trust. Acad. Manag. Rev. 20(3), 709–734 (1995)
Moorman, C., Deshpande, R., Zaltman, G.: Factors affecting trust in market research relationships. J. Mark. 57, 81–101 (1993)
Polanyi, M.: The Tacit Dimension. Routledge, London (1966)
Tsai, W.: Social capital, strategic relatedness and the formation of intra-organizational linkages. Strateg. Manag. J. 21(9), 925–939 (2000)
Rousseau, D.M., Sitkin, S.B., Burt, R.S., Camerer, C.: Not so different after all: a cross-discipline view of trust. Acad. Manag. Rev. 23(3), 393–404 (1998)
Sharifirad, M.S.: Can incivility impair team’s creative performance through paralyzing employee’s knowledge sharing? A multi-level approach. Leadersh. Organ. Dev. J. 37(2), 200–225 (2016)
Shazi, R., Gillespie, N., Steen, J.: Trust as a predictor of innovation network ties in project teams. Int. J. Proj. Manag. 33(1), 81–91 (2014)
Shin, S.J., Zhou, J.: When is educational specialization heterogeneity related to creativity in research and development teams? Transformational leadership as a moderator. J. Appl. Psychol. 92, 1709–1721 (2007)
Wong, Y.T., Ngo, H.Y., Wong, C.S.: Antecedents and outcomes of employees’ trust in Chinese joint ventures. Asia Pac. J. Manag. 20(4), 481–499 (2003)
Acknowledgements
The work is fully sponsored by the projects of Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) under Grant Nos. 71271036 and 71471028.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this paper
Cite this paper
Wu, J., Zhao, H., Pan, D. (2016). Effects of Different Trust on Team Creativity: Taking Knowledge Sharing as a Mediator. In: Chen, J., Nakamori, Y., Yue, W., Tang, X. (eds) Knowledge and Systems Sciences. KSS 2016. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 660. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-2857-1_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-2857-1_4
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-10-2856-4
Online ISBN: 978-981-10-2857-1
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)