Overcoming the challenge of exploration: How decompartmentalization of internal communication enhances the effect of exploration on employee inventive performance
研究发现，研发员工探索行为提升发明价值，但仅在内部沟通去部门化程度高的工作场所中成立，即跨部门沟通频繁、员工轮岗或管理层支持去部门化时。
Drawing upon the notion of boundaryless organizations and upon the information processing perspective of organizational design, we investigate the decompartmentalization of internal communication as a unique organizational context that moderates the relationship between R&D employees’ exploration behaviors and their individual inventive performance. We test our hypotheses using a novel combination of survey and archival data. We find that R&D employees who explore more generate inventions that are more valuable only when in workplaces characterized by high communication decompartmentalization. Such workplaces have more frequent communication between R&D and other units, more employee mobility via cross-unit project rotations, or greater managerial support for decompartmentalization. Our findings suggest the importance of communication decompartmentalization, especially for companies that need employees to engage in exploration.