Effects of Communication Style and Age Diversity in Innovation Teams

This study explores how new product development is affected by age and communication style diversity in teams. Results are derived from a survey study of 232 German SMEs and indicate that a diversity of communication styles in teams has ambivalent effects. On the one hand, it improves a creative team environment that facilitates product innovativeness and speed to market of new product development within teams. On the other hand, it increases relationship conflicts. Even though relationship conflicts have no direct impact on innovation performance, they hamper a creative team environment. Our results indicate that the beneficial effects of communication style diversity outweigh the dysfunctional effects on innovation performance in teams. Age diversity however has only a positive association with relationship conflicts.