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This chapter synthesizes literature on multidisciplinary and multicultural creative teams. We examine the main similarities and differences between cultural and disciplinary diversity; summarize the primary, relevant theories; describe the extant literature on the relationship between team diversity and creativity, information sharing, conflict, and other factors; and point out gaps in the literature and potential future work. Diversity can benefit creativity if the underlying breadth of perspectives is harnessed, but the relationship between diversity and creativity is a complex and heavily moderated one. This chapter integrates recent advances, such as multilevel theory, the importance of shared mental models, and different aspects of creativity. In addition, this chapter highlights the importance of faultlines, or when multiple types of diversity align within the same team. Future research should take a broader systems perspective, examining factors such as type and degree of diversity, context of the team, and time/group development, among other variables.

This chapter presents recent theorizing and empirical research developing the construct of third culture as a way to measure multicultural teams’ shared cognition and identity. A four quadrant model of third culture in multicultural teams is proposed, resulting in four third culture forms: assimilation, melting pot, fusion, and mosaic. Antecedents and consequences of the four culture forms are discussed.

This chapter discusses team learning, specifically learning in project teams. Different stimuli that can either facilitate or inhibit team learning are reviewed and applied to the unique features of project teams. Three major outcomes of learning (e.g., performance, adaptive behaviors, and shared mental models) are considered in the context of learning within project teams. The impact of different types of learning on performance effectiveness and efficiency is discussed, with relevant contextual factors, such as task type and team tenure. The chapter presents methods for increasing adaptive behaviors that can impact the occurrence of learning within project teams. The importance of shared mental models, as well as how learning impacts the development of shared mental models in the context of project teams, is discussed. Practical implications for learning within project teams are suggested for consideration, and future directions for research explored.

Teams perform better when its members possess a shared, accurate, and complimentary understanding about key elements such as the team’s purpose, priorities, roles, and tasks—“shared cognitions.” This chapter describes eight types of shared cognitions, including an understanding of who on the team has specific expertise (sometimes called transactive memory) and if–then contingencies (what to do when certain situations arise). Shared cognitions improve routine coordination and enable faster, smarter adjustments. This chapter also reveals that team member familiarity can help up to a point, but too much familiarity may create a risk of complacency. Research shows that professional familiarity, such as knowing team members’ work-related strengths and weaknesses is more valuable than personal familiarity, such as knowing their hobbies. Methods for building shared cognitions are described related to direction setting (e.g., visioning, chartering), preparing (e.g., role clarification exercises, scenario-based training), updating (e.g., debriefs, huddles), and assimilating (e.g., onboarding).

This chapter advances a conceptualization of collective identity as a set of shared cognitive structures (or mental models) about the collective self. Below I argue that the Soviet Union was successful in instilling a Soviet collective identity and that the two main mental models that constituted this identity were a sense of Soviet exceptionalism and a sense of the Soviet state being surrounded by the enemy. These shared mental models represented important pillars supporting individual-level dignity and self-esteem for many Soviet citizens as well as a source of their perceptions of in-group and out-group members. Empirical findings from Yuri Levada’s “simple Soviet person” project and a variety of secondary data are used to support the central claims of this chapter.

This book has presented a theory of project leadership from the perspective of balancing leadership between the project manager and horizontal leaders. The theory offers an explanation on how the shifting of leadership in projects between formally appointed leaders and project team members occurs, and how social and cognitive structures enable such shifts. This chapter draws on two Canadian case studies and applies the perspective of socio-cognitive space to understand how shifting of leadership was enabled. It shows the nature of the dimensions of socio-cognitive space; i.e., empowerment, efficacy, and shared mental models, how these processes evolve, and the role they play in supporting the dynamics of the shifting of leadership.