Team diversity, perspective taking, and employee creativity: The importance of psychological safety

Abstract

I investigated how and when cognitive team diversity motivates employees to engage in creativity, and proposed perspective taking as a psychological mechanism underlying the relationship, and psychological safety as a boundary condition for the effect of cognitive team diversity on perspective taking. I assessed the proposed relationships with data from 151 Korean employees in research and development teams. Results show that cognitive team diversity significantly predicted employee creativity, and perspective taking mediated this relationship. Further, psychological safety moderated the link between cognitive team diversity and perspective taking, such that the relationship was effective only under conditions of high psychological safety. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.