Team psychological safety — a non-threatening and safe climate — allows team members to express and share each other's opinions freely, and this sharing may produce more useful perspectives to induce team creativity. In a psychologically safe climate, transactive memory systems (TMSs) may be constructed for describing the specialised division of cognitive labour for solving information problems and thereby enabling team members to quickly gain and use knowledge across domains. As a consequence, further ideas may be generated within teams, increasing team creativity. Our research model is assessed using data from a sample of 110 team members from 40 research and development (R&D) teams in a leading technology company in Taiwan and analysed using the partial least squares method. The results of this study reveal that: (1) team psychological safety did not directly affect team creativity, (2) team psychological safety affects TMSs, (3) TMSs affect team creativity, and (4) TMSs fully mediate the relationship between team psychological safety and team creativity. This study also discusses the implications for team creativity.

This article investigated how collectivism-oriented human resource management can influence on innovation performance through team reflexivity and team psychological safety. Using a sample of 200 research-oriented teams in Chinese universities, the empirical results clearly indicate that collectivism-oriented human resource management is beneficial to teams’ innovation performance. The results of the mediating model show how team reflexivity and team psychological safety mediate the relationship between collectivism-oriented human resource management and innovation performance. The implications for researchers and practitioners are also discussed.

R&D is uncertain work that involves the knowledge, skills, or perspectives of team members. When R&D teams develop new products or technologies, the need for psychological safety within the teams is increasingly emphasized. If R&D team members perceive that team psychological safety exists, they may be willing to offer knowledge or perspectives during the development process because they are not afraid of being rejected or embarrassed for speaking up. However, the application of the theory of team psychological safety to R&D teams is considerably limited. This study explores the antecedents and consequences of team psychological safety in R&D teams. Our research model is assessed using data from a sample of 245 team members from sixty technology R&D teams at a leading R&D institute and is analyzed using the partial least squares (PLS) method. The results of this study suggest that: (1) social capital exerts a positive and significant effect on team psychological safety; (2) team psychological safety has a positive and significant impact on team performance; (3) knowledge sharing and team learning positively and significantly mediate the relationship between team psychological safety and team performance; and (4) knowledge sharing exhibits a positive and significant effect on team learning. This study also discusses the implications of team psychological safety for R&D teams.