Associate Professor Brendan Boyle

Drawing on team innovation and mood-as-information theories, this paper develops a moderated mediation model to explain the effect of environmental dynamism on team innovative capability. We argue that this effect occurs through an increase in cognitive diversity and is contingent on positive mood, which engenders a more expansive and flexible approach to problem solving. Data collected through a survey-based study of 63 US healthcare teams generates support for our arguments that environmental dynamism increases innovative capability and does so through cognitive diversity. Further, our data suggest that this path only exists when teams are characterized by positive mood. Overall, we find support for a moderated mediation model in which environmental dynamism increases innovative capability through cognitive diversity contingent on positive mood, which allows us to contribute significantly to literature on team innovative capability and mood-as-information.

Past research into team faultlines has provided important insights, however, as with other aspects of compositional diversity, findings are somewhat ambiguous. This suggests the need to examine more complex and interactive effects. We draw on theorising in social categorisation and subgroups to argue that, under specific circumstances, a positive relationship between professional faultlines and innovation may exist beyond moderate (threshold) faultline strength. We posit that below this threshold, weaker faultlines have no positive impact on innovation. Further, we argue that this curvilinear relationship will be contingent on professional identity threat, such that, only when teams are characterised by identity threat will strong faultlines have a U-shaped impact on innovation. Thus, we build and investigate a model in which professional faultlines have a contingent curvilinear (U-shaped) effect on innovation, moderated by professional identity threat. Based on quantitative data from two surveys completed by leaders and members from 70 UK healthcare teams, our analyses support our hypothesised moderated curvilinear model.

This study investigates a moderated mediation model of professional commitment and team effectiveness through cognitive diversity moderated by task conflict. Data were collected from 70 UK healthcare teams and their leaders using two questionnaires. We find that teams comprised of members who have, on average, high professional commitment are more effective than teams of members who are less committed and that this path is mediated by cognitive diversity and contingent on task conflict. Team composed of members who are strongly committed to their profession may be more effective consequent to their advocacy of different perspectives and expertise, reflecting cognitive diversity. However, this positive effect of professional commitment is not universal but contingent on the level of disagreement between members on task-related issues. This is one of the first studies to demonstrate that professional commitment can increase team effectiveness and does so through a complex contingent path. While few studies have investigated professional commitment, our results suggest that such commitment can be of great value to multidisciplinary teams.

Multidisciplinary teams are increasingly advocated for in healthcare policy consequent to their capacity to develop innovative solutions to seemingly intractable service and care challenges. Recent arguments that inspirational leadership styles may foster innovation in multidisciplinary teams point to their potential value in this effort. However, inconsistency in the capacity of such leaders to engender innovation highlights the need to understand the mechanisms and boundary conditions that determine when such leadership generates positive effects. We argue that follower positive mood acts to mediate the path between inspirational leadership and innovation and may account for its variable effects. By increasing positive team mood, inspirational leaders can potentially bring about more flexible thinking and enhance innovation but can also increase reliance on less effortful information processing, undermining innovative potential. In an effort to address the dilemma posed by these contrasting effects, we propose that professional salience acts as an important boundary condition of this relationship such that only when profession is salient do inspirational leaders enhance multidisciplinary team innovation through positive mood. An analysis of survey data from 60 UK-based multidisciplinary healthcare teams, investigating the inspirational leadership of practice-based innovation, supports our moderated mediation model. Finally, the implications for HRM are considered, specifically for leader development and work team design.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the control mechanisms used by multinational corporations (MNCs) from emerging economies to manage their subsidiaries in developed countries and their implications for human resource management practices. Design/methodology/approach: The paper draws on data collected through in-depth case studies and interviews with senior subsidiary managers of 12 major Indian information technology (IT) MNCs operating in Australia. Findings: Indian IT MNCs rely heavily on the use of people-centric controls exerted through global staffing practices (via the transfer of parent-country nationals), which, in turn, influence their subsidiary¿s discretion over their HR practices. The use of people-centric controls allows Indian IT multinationals to replicate parent-country HRM practices in their Australian subsidiaries in an ethnocentric manner and significantly leverage the people-based competitive advantages from India through short- and long-term expatriate assignments. Research limitations/implications: The study investigates control and HRM practices from a single country and a single industry perspective. It provides an insight into the normative means of control in foreign subsidiaries of MNCs and enhances our understanding by explaining the integrated relationship that control mechanisms (and their people-centric components) have with HRM practices including the global staffing approaches and expatriate management practices of emerging MNCs. Practical implications: Indian MNCs are using their business model to leverage the Australian immigration and skilled visa programme to maintain cost advantages. However, the immigration legislation in developed countries needs to be capable of allowing emerging multinational corporations (EMNCs) to maintain such advantages as developed countries seek to attract foreign direct investment from emerging economies. Originality/value: The results indicate that the control practices of EMNCs are similar to the controls exerted by MNCs from developed countries. They also show that EMNCs do not adopt a portfolio approach to global staffing, and that the people-centric components of their control have a clear impact on their subsidiaries¿ HRM practices.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine innovation in the resource-constrained context of India¿s healthcare industry. It is argued that the process of innovation in addressing healthcare management challenges in such a context occurs through organisational ambidexterity and that human resource management (HRM) plays an important role. Design/methodology/approach: A qualitative research methodology is applied to explore the role of HR practices in facilitating contextual ambidexterity and subsequent innovations in healthcare in India. The unit of analysis is the ¿case¿ of healthcare providers in India and in-depth interview and documentary data in two case sites are analysed to reveal the role of HRM in facilitating contextual ambidexterity and innovation. Data analysis was undertaken first at a within-case and then at a cross-case analysis level using interpretive manual coding based on how the data explained the role of HRM in delivering innovative outcomes and supporting organisational ambidexterity. Findings: The authors found evidence of the use of sets of high-involvement HRM practices for exploration of new ideas and efficiency-driven HRM practices for creating contextual ambidexterity in the case organisations. Further, managerial/leadership style was found to play an important role in creating cultures of trust, openness, risk-taking and employee empowerment, supported by an appropriate mix of intrinsic and extrinsic rewards. Finally, training was also reported as being central to creating an ambidextrous context for delivering on various innovations in these healthcare providers. Originality/value: This study represents an exploration of innovation in the context of India¿s healthcare sector through intersecting literatures of ambidexterity, innovation and HRM practices. In light of the emerging economy research context, an important empirical contribution is palpable. Moreover, through a study design which included collecting data from multiple informants on the role of human resources in facilitating innovative outcomes, the authors reveal the role of HR-related initiatives, beyond formal HR practices in creating contextual ambidexterity. This study also reveals the degree to which contextual idiosyncrasies enhance our understanding of the role of HR in facilitating innovation in emerging economies.

The results of research on diversity in teams suggest that it offers both a great opportunity for organisations as well as an enormous challenge. However, current research is plagued by a lack of overall consistency, indicating that the relationship between diversity and team performance is not well understood. This study examines the components of cognitive conflict in order to assess whether construct operationalisation may explain this inconsistency. Analysis of the existing operationalisations of cognitive conflict reveals that it incorporates both disagreement about information and reasoning, and debate of rival hypotheses or recommendations. We propose that functional diversity leads to cognitive disagreement but not debate, and that debate enhances knowledge creation, with which cognitive disagreement shows no relationship. Our results support these hypotheses, which provide a powerful explanation for the contrary results found by researchers investigating cognitive conflict. Given that extant measures of cognitive conflict include scale items which measure both debate and cognitive disagreement, cognitive conflict may be viewed as an aggregate measure of these two distinct constructs. This study contributes to research on diversity and conflict by providing an explanation for contrary results, and by providing and a detailed operationalisation of cognitive conflict and its component constructs. It also contributes to research into creativity and innovation by providing insight into the dynamics underpinning knowledge sharing and creation.