The curvilinear effect of professional faultlines on team innovation: The pivotal role of professional identity threat

The curvilinear effect of professional faultlines on team innovation: The pivotal role of professional identity threat

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.