The Influence of Gender and Race in Fostering Innovation in Engineering Teams

该研究探讨了多样性和工程团队动态的相互作用如何影响工作场所的创新。研究人员应用分类激励模型（CEM）来研究为什么简单地将女性或少数民族纳入工程团队并不能自动带来更大的创新。该模型调和不一致的文学团队的多样性和团队绩效，并解决了团队的多样性何时以及如何可以有一个积极的关系，如创造力，创新，团队效能和绩效的各种指标的基本问题。该研究增加了研究文献明确链接类型的团队多样性与创新;同时研究团队动态，团队小气候和团队认知，以突出的因素，促进或阻碍不同的团队创新;通过收集数据，在两年的时间内添加时间元素;和研究的多样性创新过程中的团队工作的工程师在该领域。调查人员将使用变量，如价值，激进，和开发团队的数量？在新兴技术的专利。 研究结果将通过识别特定的团队动力和促进不同团队实现创新目标的微气候来影响工程公司的组织实践。该项目是一项大规模的定量调查，将团队多样性和团队动力与团队绩效和创新指标（主要是专利）联系起来。该研究将收集来自5，234名工程校友的数据，这些校友参加了之前由NSF资助的纵向研究，该研究涉及影响工程职业持久性的背景障碍。它将探讨四个研究问题：（1）必须具备哪些条件，以促进/阻碍人口和信息多样化的团队产生创新的解决方案？(2)人口统计和信息多样化的团队产生创新解决方案的潜在机制是什么？(3)什么是基本的机制，解释人口和信息多样化的团队，信息，讨论过程和创新之间的关系？以及（4）在两年的研究期间，这些过程是如何变化的？ CEM假设，它不是性别和种族多元化的团队和创新之间的直接关系，但在团队和团队动态的影响多样性和创新之间的关系的因素。 研究人员将使用分层线性回归、中介分析和方差分析来检验这六个假设。 该项目由ECR计划支持，该计划强调基础STEM教育研究，产生该领域的基础知识。 投资是在关键领域是必不可少的，广泛的和持久的：干学习和干学习环境，扩大参与干，干劳动力发展。 ECR支持积累强有力的证据，为理解、建立理论解释、提出干预和创新建议，以应对STEM兴趣、教育、学习和参与方面的持续挑战提供信息。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。

The study examines how the interaction of diversity and engineering team dynamics impact innovation in the workplace. The investigators apply the Categorization Elaboration Model (CEM) to investigate why simply including women or racial/ethnic minorities on engineering teams does not lead automatically to greater innovation. The model reconciles the inconsistent literature on team diversity and team performance and addresses the fundamental question of when and how team diversity can have a positive relationship with various indicators of performance such as creativity, innovation, team effectiveness, and performance. The study adds to the research literature by explicitly linking types of team diversity with innovation; simultaneously examining team dynamics, team microclimate, and team cognition to highlight factors that facilitate or impede innovation in diverse teams; adding temporal elements by collecting data over a two-year period; and examining the diversity-innovation process among teams of working engineers in the field. Investigators will use variables such as the value, radicalness, and number of a development team?s patents in emergent technologies. The research findings will influence organizational practices within engineering firms by identifying specific team dynamics and microclimates that facilitate innovation goal achievement by diverse teams.The project is a large scale quantitative survey linking team diversity and team dynamics to team performance and metrics of innovation, primarily patents. The study will collect data from 5,234 engineering alumni who participated in a prior NSF funded longitudinal study about contextual barriers that impact persistence in engineering careers. It will investigate four research questions: (1) What conditions must be in place to facilitate/hinder demographically and informationally diverse teams to produce innovative solutions? (2) What are the underlying mechanisms by which demographically and informationally diverse teams produce innovative solutions? (3) What are the underlying mechanisms that explain the relationship between demographically and informationally diverse teams, information, discussion process, and innovation? and (4) How do these processes vary over the study period of two years? The CEM hypothesizes that it is not direct relationships between gender and racially diverse teams and innovation but factors within the team and team dynamics that influence the relationship between diversity and innovation. The investigators will use hierarchical linear regression, mediation analysis, and ANOVA to test the six hypotheses. The project is supported by the ECR program that emphasizes fundamental STEM education research that generates foundational knowledge in the field. Investments are made in critical areas that are essential, broad and enduring: STEM learning and STEM learning environments, broadening participation in STEM, and STEM workforce development. ECR supports the accumulation of robust evidence to inform efforts to understand, build theory to explain, and suggest intervention and innovations to address persistent challenges in STEM interest, education, learning and participation.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.