Seminar (Dept. of Organization and Human Resources)

Theme： Team Innovation and “The Brokering Competitor”: How Teams Exploit Network Advantages to Combat Inter-Team Competition and Innovate

Speaker：Taiyi Yan (UCL School of Management)

Time：2021-09-15 14:00

Address：Room 1008, Mingde Business Building，Tencent Meeting

Language：Chinese/English

Venue: Room 1008, Mingde Business Building

Tencent Meeting： https://meeting.tencent.com/dm/NgWhHd16ymTo?rs=25 

Meeting ID：963 637 108

Password：0915

ABSTRACT ：  

Organizations are increasingly promoting competition amongst teams in a bid to motivate and enhance their innovation. Yet, competition can also curtail the exchange of knowledge and ideas among these teams, which are important catalysts for the development of innovative products and services. Using two studies—a team-network experimental study and a field study of 73 knowledge-intensive teams in technology firms—we find that extensive competition faced by a focal team from other teams reduces its access to and utilization of knowledge resources from other teams, thereby hindering team innovation. Applying insights from structural hole theory, we further find that occupying brokerage positions in the inter-team information exchange network buffers the effects of competition such that the negative effects of competition on knowledge integration and innovation are stronger when teams do not occupy such advantageous positions. Theoretical and practical implications of the effects of team competition and brokerage are discussed.

SHORT BIOGRAPHY：

Taiyi Yan is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Organisation and Innovation at the UCL School of Management. Before joining UCL, he received his doctoral degree in business administration from the University of Maryland, College Park, and his bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. His work has been featured in leading management and psychology journals such as Journal of Applied Psychology, Personnel Psychology, and Psychological Bulletin. In addition to his academic career, he has worked at world-leading organizations such as Morgan Stanley and Mercer.