1 Creativity and Innovation Management-Chen-2007
1 Creativity and Innovation Management-Chen-2007
1 Creativity and Innovation Management-Chen-2007
239
Introduction
n todays competitive world, the sole entrepreneur can fail more easily than entrepreneurial teams, and most successful
new ventures are started by teams (Watson,
Ponthieu & Critelli, 1995). Reich (1987) argued
that economic growth comes through collective entrepreneurship in which talent, energy
and skills are integrated into a team, and this
collective capacity to innovate becomes greater
than the sum of individual contributions.
Cooper (1973) found that 48 percent of high
technology rms in Austin, Texas; 61 percent
in Palo Alto, California; and 59 percent of 955
geographically dispersed rms were started
by groups of two or more people. Kamm et al.
(1990) indicated that 56 of the 100 bestperforming rms were team ventures and that
team ventures had higher revenues, greater
net incomes, and more successful market capitalization than non-team ventures. The activity
of an entrepreneurial team made up of professionals from various disciplines required in
new product development can speed product development and commercialization
(Bingham & Quigley, 1989). Furthermore,
despite the availability of technology, entrepreneurs, and nancial resources, the factors
affecting creative excellence in teams remain
poorly understood (Bygrave & Timmons,
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doi:10.1111/j.1467-8691.2007.00439.x
240
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Independent variable
Moderating variable
241
Dependent variables
New Ventures
Entrepreneurial Leadership
Innovative Capability
- Patent creation
Creativity in
Entrepreneurial teams
Control variables
- Entrepreneurial team size
- Firm size
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Method
Samples
Research in technical entrepreneurship has
identied the research-based academic environment as the predominant background
from which technical entrepreneurs emerged
(Cooper, 1973). Therefore, the list of all tenant
rms established in government-funded incu-
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Table 1. Results of Hierarchical Regression Analysis for the Effects of Leadership and Creativity on New
Ventures Innovative Capability (N = 112 Teams).
Variables
Model 1
b
Control variables
Entrepreneurial team size
Firm size
Independent variables
Entrepreneurial team leadership
Creativity in entrepreneurial
teams
Interaction effect
Leadership Creativity
R2
DR2
Model F
df
0.40
-0.15
0.11
0.11
5.34**
2, 89
Model 2
Model 3
3.11**
-1.16
0.42
-0.14
3.26**
-1.08
0.46
-0.11
3.63***
-0.85
-0.03
0.18
-0.24
1.70+
-1.73
-2.71
-2.37*
-2.20*
0.14
0.03
3.44*
2, 87
3.79
0.19
0.05*
4.01**
1, 86
2.36*
Notes: The variable patent creation is counted as cumulative numbers of patent creation divided by the
established years.
+
p < 0.01, * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01; *** p < 0.001.
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Table 2. Correlation Matrix for the All Studied Variables (N = 112 Teams)
Variables
1
2
3
4
5
Mean (SD)
4.39
31.61
4.37
3.90
1.04
(3.00)
(41.91)
(.43)
(.55)
(2.25)
0.58**
0.05
-0.14
0.08
0.06
-0.10
0.29**
0.42**
0.05
0.14
Notes: The variable patent creation is counted as cumulative numbers of patent creation divided by the
established years.
** p < 0.01 (two-tailed test).
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Conclusions
This paper is an empirical study drawn from
Taiwans high-tech entrepreneurial teams that
explores the moderating role of creativity in
entrepreneurial teams, and how it is connected to the relationship between entrepreneurial leadership and new ventures
innovative capability. One key nding of this
paper suggests that in a new ventures
context, entrepreneurial leadership can
stimulate entrepreneurial team members to
be more creative. The second nding suggests
that when lead entrepreneurs have higher
risk-taking, pro-activeness and innovativeness, they can stimulate their entrepreneurial
team to be more creative during the patent
creation process. It also indicates that the joint
contribution of higher entrepreneurial leadership and more creative teams can enhance
the creation of more patents by a new
venture.
While this paper makes an important and
meaningful contribution to an understanding
of the effects of entrepreneurial leadership
and team creativity on patent creation, some
research limitations merit discussion. One
limitation was that patent creation was used
as a single indicator of new ventures innovative capability for high-tech sectors. Further
work could incorporate multi-indicators to
measure new ventures innovation. In addition, one might need to bear in mind that
using patents as the innovation metric for
high-tech sectors might not be suitable for all
types of rms.
A further limitation was that only one
respondent from each rm answered the questionnaire, which did not allow us to test
within-group agreement. This could be an
important issue because cross-cultural divergence in effectiveness of entrepreneurial leadership is typical at the micro level and reects
the varying needs, values and beliefs of people
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80
75
70
Patent Creation
65
60
Low Creativity in
Entrepreneurial Teams
High Creativity in
Entrepreneurial Teams
55
50
Low
High
Entrepreneurial Leadership
Acknowledgement
The author would like to thank the National
Science Council, Taiwan, for funding the
project under grant NSC 92-2416-H-155-011.
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