creativity

Through their diversity of competences and knowledge, heterogeneous new product development teams have a high potential for innovativeness. On the one hand, team diversity helps to deal with complex tasks and to improve the development of new products. On the other hand, a high level of diversity can lead to communication and cooperation barriers within the team, obstructing teamwork and hence hindering creativity and innovativeness. Therefore, finding the right constellation in this conflict between diversity and communication - exploiting the benefits whilst avoiding the hindrances - contributes to helping develop the full potential for innovation. This paper describes the different influences of diversity on the innovativeness of NPD teams and gives practical implications for managing heterogeneous teams.

Industry and export are the engine of the German economy. Not least the financial crisis and the impact on the real economy showed that the general conditions of the industrial enterprises change increasingly faster and radically. Changes which have been observed for longer times are enforced by the aftermath of the financial crisis. Two category groups can be identified as main challenges for the German industry: encrusted structures and socio-technical change. In companies the classical management methods are widely spread whose effectivity relies on the entire knowledge of causal connections and influence factors. But against the background of the actual challenges this not the status quo. This article explains how the comparison with nature offers explanations and approaches for the described problem.