Abstract
The everchanging dynamics of business world in general and telecom sector in particular require the consideration of individual differences on the basis of thinking and its connectivity with creativity and innovation. But still the researchers have not fully addressed this issue. This study wanted to discuss the relationship of different thinking styles namely conditional, inquiring, exploring, independent and creative thinking style with innovation through the lens of Theory of Reality Construction. The context of teams was chosen to be ideal for it. This empirical study employed quantitative methodology with survey research method. The date was collected with the perspective of multi-level analysis and was aggregated at team level. The results identified the significant direct relationship of all thinking styles with Innovation except Independent Thinking Style. Moreover, conditional, inquiring, independent, exploring thinking style did not show a meaningful relationship with teamwork quality while creative thinking style showed significant influence over teamwork quality. In addition, Teamwork Quality also mediated the relationship of creative style of thinking with innovation. Moreover, study established fuzzy decision framework based upon these results. Consequently, this study added the novel contribution in the literature of thinking styles, innovation and teams and also provided guidelines for practitioners of telecom sector. Additionally, this study has also guided the future researchers to further extend the body of knowledge in this particular field.
Keywords: Thinking Styles, Innovation, Teamwork Quality, Conditional, Independent, Exploring, Inquiring, Creative