Re-examining the team reflexivity–innovation relationship: The roles of team resilience and team dominant functional diversity

Start-ups drive innovation, yet teams in these contexts face high levels of uncertainty and ambiguity, and persistent risks of failure on their path to innovation. However, how these teams cope with these adversities has yet to be explored. Responding to this research gap, we draw on the conservation of resources theory and develop a resource-based model of team resilience in relation to team innovation in start-up contexts. We propose that team reflexivity enhances resilience by providing relational resources (for example, caring) to protect against resource loss in the team innovation process. We further suggest the team's dominant functional diversity (TDFD) as a moderator of the direct relationship between team reflexivity and innovation. We conducted two separate survey studies with 51 (Study 1) and 64 teams (Study 2) in start-up contexts, gathering data from two sources: team members and team leaders. Both studies demonstrate that teams that engage in more reflexivity processes are more resilient, which, in turn, is positively related to team innovation. Study 2 further indicates that the direct relationship between team reflexivity and innovation is negative for high levels of TDFD, but non-significant for low levels. However, post hoc analysis shows that the positive mediation effect of resilience in the relationship between team reflexivity and team innovation holds, independent of the level of TDFD. Our studies contribute to the current literature and practice on team innovation in the start-up context by providing insights into the team resources critical for innovation.