Embracing multicultural tensions: How team members’ multicultural paradox mindsets foster team information elaboration and creativity

We explore why teams with the same level of cultural diversity can differ in their level of creativity. To this end, we introduce the concept of paradox mindsets to research on multicultural teams. We argue that team members with a high multicultural paradox mindset are accepting of and energized by intercultural tensions, both emphasizing cultural differences and finding common ground. Their presence thus enables multicultural teams to embrace these tensions and leverage their cultural diversity toward team creativity. Specifically, we hypothesize that teams with members that have a high multicultural paradox mindset are more creative because these members promote information elaboration at the team level, which in turn fosters creativity. We test our hypotheses in a study of 217 individuals randomly assigned to 63 culturally diverse teams. Results provide support for our overarching theory.