Empirical study on the influence factors of R&D team creativity in China

Research and development teams ( R&D teams) is commonly used in organizations today to solve problems and accomplish creative tasks. But there is little known about the variables that affect team-level creativity, and the optimal conditions that promote it, and how to design team for optimal creative and high quality performance. Because the idea of creative synergy has much to offer in terms of both theory development and practical application, it is worthy of more specific attention by creativity researchers. The research explored and validated 5 major factors that affect R&D team creativity by team shared mental models in Chinese context, including task characteristics, team formation, team leadership, member characteristics and organizational environment. Thus, we should pay attention to the team interaction with member, task and process to improve team creativity. Then make some analysis of the result, and give out the some relative suggestions to improve R&D team creativity in China.