An Asia-centric approach to team innovation: Cultural differences in exploration and exploitation behavior

This paper analyses how cultural differences across China, India, and Singapore influence team exploration, exploitation, and innovativeness. Previous cross-cultural and innovation literature mainly focused on Western cultures or East-West comparisons. In this research, we investigate innovation related cultural specifics that differentiate team behavior in China, India, and Singapore (e.g., guanxi, jugaad, and kiasu), and investigate differences in team exploration, exploitation, and innovativeness across those three cultures. We test our model in a survey study with matched answers of team members and their supervisors in innovation teams across China, India, and Singapore. In line with our theorizing, our findings suggest comparably high levels of team exploration in India, and comparably high levels of team exploitation in China. Additionally, we find team exploration, more than team exploitation, relates to team innovativeness in China, India, and Singapore.

Automated summary

This research found that Indian teams focus more on exploration, while Chinese teams focus more on exploitation. In China, India, and Singapore, team exploration is more strongly related to team innovativeness than team exploitation.