Fostering Innovation in Interdisciplinary Workgroups: The Critical Roles of Inclusion and Leader Inclusiveness

Background: Human service organizations strive to create innovative workplaces to increase organizational sustainability, performance, and quality of care. Research indicates that job-diverse workgroups (i.e., interdisciplinary workgroups with members of different job positions and responsibilities, educational levels, and job tenure and experience) can lead to increased innovation, yet more research is needed to understand how job diversity may lead to innovation. This is particularly important for human service and social work organizations striving to create effective interdisciplinary teams that provide high quality care. Thus, this study examined the conditions in which high and low job-diverse workgroups increase innovation. More specifically, this study investigates the moderating effects of leader inclusiveness and climate for inclusion on the relationship between job diversity and climate for innovation. New insights are developed on when inclusion increases innovation, particularly in low and high job-diverse workgroups. This information can be used to inform how leaders foster a climate for innovation in human service interdisciplinary organizational contexts.

Method: Multilevel moderated regression analyses were used to examine how climate for inclusion and leader inclusiveness influenced the job diversity-to-innovation relationship. Data were collected from a diverse interdisciplinary nonprofit hospital department (n = 213) with 21 within department workgroups (average of 10 employees per group, SD = 6.58, range = 5‒25). Pre-validated scales were used to measure innovation, inclusion, and leader inclusiveness. Blau’s diversity index was used to measure workgroup job diversity [values capture the spread of group members across different demographic categories, with maximum values (closer to 1) indicating that group members are spread equally over all possible categories of a demographic variable].

Results: The sample was diverse with 41% of respondents self-reported as Asian, 21% as White, 20% as mixed race or other, 14% as Latinx, and 4% as African American. Several models were examined among high and low diverse workgroups [i.e., diversity among education levels, job positions, and job diversity (the combination of education, job position, and job tenure diversity)]. Significant interactions between leader inclusiveness and climate for inclusion on the relationship between workgroup diversity and climate for innovation were found among all models [education (β = .13, SD =.05, t = 2.67, p < .01); job position (β = .09, SD =.03, t = 2.70, p < .01); and job-diversity (β = .13, SD = .05, t = 2.76, p < .01)].

Conclusions/implications: Results showed that high climates of inclusion resulted in higher climates for innovation in both low and high diverse groups. The effects for leader inclusiveness on innovation, however, were less straight forward. When looking just among workgroups with high climates of inclusion, leader inclusiveness appeared to influence innovation only in high diverse groups, as opposed to low diverse groups. In other words, once workgroups achieved high levels of inclusion, leader inclusiveness only enhanced innovation above and beyond the effects of an inclusive climate in high job diverse groups. Several theories help explain these findings and suggest the critical role leaders have in highly diverse interdisciplinary teams.