Drawing Snow White and Animating Buzz Lightyear: Technological Toolkit Characteristics and Creativity in Cross-Disciplinary Teams

The use of technological tools to execute creative tasks is pervasive within cross‐disciplinary teams, yet little attention has been paid to their role in influencing team creativity. In particular, no research has focused on how the characteristics of a team’s technological toolkit–the set of technological tools a team can draw upon to construct its actions–can affect team creativity. I propose that considering the toolkit, rather than just isolated tools, and the multiple functions played by tools is critical to understanding how technology characteristics influence team creativity. I hypothesize that creativity in cross‐disciplinary teams is influenced by the size and field diffusion of the team toolkit, with size having a curvilinear relationship with creativity, and diffusion having a positive relationship. Moreover, I hypothesize that these effects will be attenuated when the number of team members who are experts with the focal tool is high. I test and find support for these hypotheses in a study set in the context of the Hollywood animation industry, a knowledge‐intensive industry characterized by the presence of cross‐disciplinary teams using a variety of technological tools. Theoretical and practical implications of the results are discussed.