Creative collaboration within two-person teams: A comparative case study

「兩人」是團隊組成的最小單位，回顧人類社會經濟活動的發展，許多重要的創新，經常是從兩人團隊開始。特別是以創意為核心的任務或作為，更易於以兩人為基礎，個別尋覓契合自我價值觀、專業能力，和人格特質的合作搭檔。雖然兩人團隊是人類社會經濟活動的常態，存在著重要的學理和實務意涵需要探討；但是，目前有關兩人團隊的文獻仍不多見。本研究的目的，即在回應此一文獻缺口，探討兩人團隊創意交融的系絡。 研究採取比較個案研究法，以八個兩人設計團隊進行半結構的深度訪談，正式研究前則進行了兩個前導個案的研究。經彙整訪談逐字稿之文本分析內容後，本研究有三個主要發現。第一，兩人設計團隊創意協作的歷程，從成員對產品核心概念的探索開始，之後會經歷共同建構創意、精緻化創意和實踐創意等過程。而產品核心概念的頓悟，通常是兩人在相近的問題意識下，從參與共享的情境當中浮現。此一情境浮現之頓悟並不專屬哪一方，但又必須仰賴兩人共同參與情境而獲得。第二，友誼是促進兩人設計團隊發展交融記憶系統的重要因素，友誼不僅帶動了兩人從玩票接案到正式形成團隊，同時也在團隊運作過程中，增強交融記憶系統本身的能量。第三，成員會透過不同形式的溝通互動，促進資訊的交流並精緻彼此的創意，這些形式包括了競爭型互動、合作型互動，和基於玩興的互動。 整體而言，本研究拓展了吾人對於兩人團隊及其創意交融的理解，也對團隊經營和團隊創意管理的實務有所貢獻。團隊發展實務上，可培養交融記憶系統成為團隊賴以運作的核心能耐，並透過成員共同參與情境的方式，營造有利於兩人從事創意交融活動的場域。‘Two person’ is a basic unit of the composition of a team. Looking back on the historical development of the social and economic activities of the human, many radical innovations were often invented by two-person teams. Especially, creative workers, based on the two-person team structure, are more likely to search for the right partner that whose vision, value, expertise, and personality are best fit with each other. Despite the research on two-person team could provide valuable theoretical and practical implications for team literature; very little attention has given to such phenomena. Using a multi-case of eight two-person design teams, this dissertation explores the creative collaboration within the two-person teams. Through the qualitative analysis of the data, this dissertation provides three major findings. First, the creative collaboration processes within the two-person team contain four stages which begin exploring the core concept of the product. Then, team members collectively co-construct, elaborate and execute the core concept of the product. The insight of core concept of the product usually emerges from the two persons who have similar problem awareness and collectively engage in a shared context. This insight is not exclusive which party, but must rely on both sides to collectively engage in the shared context to develop. Second, friendship plays an important role for facilitating the development of the team’s transactive memory system (TMS). Friendship not only helps the two persons to build a team, help the team’s TMS function well in the team development processes. Third, members within the two-person team use three kinds of dialogue communication for exchanging information and elaborating creative ideas of the members. The three kinds of dialogue are: competitive dialogue, collaborative dialogue, and playfulness dialogue. Overall, this dissertation extends the current knowledge in management area about the creative collaboration within the two-person teams. Results of this dissertation also contribute to the management for two-person teams and the management of team members’ creative ideas. This dissertation suggests the two-person teams can build TMS as a team’s core capability and engage in shared contexts where beneficial for the creative collaboration