This paper presents an overview of Chapter 8 “Teaming routines in complex innovation projects,” of Howard-Grenville et al. (2016). The chapter focuses on innovation, where multiple experts work together towards the success of an unprecedented project and aim to achieve innovative outcomes. The authors examine the factors that contribute to success by investigating the Nona Lake project, which took place in Florida, USA. The analysis reveals that “teaming,” which refers to the ongoing adjustment and collaboration between experts, was effectively implemented in the project. Moreover, two routines that promote teaming and three types of leadership that enable these routines were identified. The chapter also suggests that in the context of innovation, leaders intentionally create teaming routines and that the performative aspect of teaming routines leads to the creation of the ostensive aspect. This paper provides an overview of Chapter 8, discusses its contributions and challenges to routine research, and explores potential avenues for future research.

According to Ter Wal, Criscuolo, McEvily, and Salter (2020), innovation performance was higher when pairs of engineers and technology development managers had ties that overlapped at the group level but not at the individual level. They termed this situation “Dual Networking”. They proposed two reasons why Dual Networking works: dual interpretation and dual influencing. The former suggested that they could interpret same information from different perspectives. The latter proposed that they could complement each other’s influence. Dual Networking may be applicable not only to the context of R&D, but also to settings requiring creativity, such as advertising firms. Further discussion about refining the measurement of Dual Networking could advance our understanding of creativity and social network dynamics.