Mapping Team Creativity in Business: A Systematic Literature Review of Antecedents, Mediators, Inhibitors and Outcomes

With the rise of technological innovations, intense competition, and economic pressures, businesses heavily rely on team creativity to develop novelties, produce creative solutions, maintain competitive advantages, and enhance business performance. Despite this, previous research on the factors of team creativity has yielded inconsistent results and provided ambiguous implications. Therefore, this study employs a systematic literature review to explore the antecedents, mediators, inhibitors, and outcomes of team creativity. Furthermore, the PRISMA guidelines were followed to select and analyse 40 research articles on team creativity. The findings of the study revealed that shared leadership approaches, knowledge sharing, and team behaviours are important components of team creativity. Conversely, ineffective communication, information elaboration, intragroup and task conflict were found to impede team creativity. The most common outcomes of the phenomena included increased distribution of leadership responsibilities and improved idea sharing. This review advances the literature by synthesising prior works to develop a conceptual model that offers a nuanced understanding of team creativity. The study further discusses managerial implications and provides future directions.