Influence of need for cognition and psychological safety climate on information elaboration and team creativity

Team creativity is critical for organization survival, and the quality of team creativity depends on the ideas provided by team members as well as the discussion processes through which teams realize the potential of these ideas. On the basis of the Motivated Information Processing in Groups (MIP-G) model, which suggests that the quality of group decisions is a function of the interaction between epistemic motivation and social motivation, we examined (1) the effects that teams’ need for cognition (an antecedent of epistemic motivation) and (2) the effects that a team’s psychological safety climate (an antecedent of social motivation) have on team members’ information elaboration. We hypothesized that, through information elaboration, these two factors interact with each other in their effects on team creativity. A survey of 106 teams from 87 companies was conducted, and the results of the subsequent analysis of data provide some support for the MIP-G model. Psychological safety climate and the need for cognition were positively associated with team creativity through information elaboration. However, we did not find support for the interaction effect, in contrast to assumptions in the MIP-G model.