The impacts of diversity on team innovation and the moderating effects of cooperative team culture

Previous research has paid little attention to both the main and moderating variables which have effects on innovation in public organizations. This study analyzes not only the impact of surface- and deep-level diversity but also the moderating effects of cooperative team culture on team innovation. For the study, we collected data from 360 teams within 25 district offices in Seoul. The finding reveals that value diversity has a negative effect on team innovation. In other words, as the level of value diversity increases, that of team innovation decreases. The most important finding of the study is that cooperative team culture has a moderating effect on the relationship between diversity variables and team innovation. This means that the effects of diversity variables on team innovation are larger when cooperative team culture is stronger.