Group culture, workplace diversity and organizational innovativeness : evidence from Serbia.

We examine the relationship between group culture – which emphasizes mentoring, teamwork and loyalty – and innovativeness in organizations. The relationship between group culture and innovativeness is assumed to be positive; group culture fosters trust and knowledge sharing which is conducive to joint creativity and collaboration necessary for the innovation process. Drawing on social categorization theory and key insights from gender studies, we develop a more nuanced argument that this positive relationship is bounded by gender diversity within the organization; organizations that are highly gender diverse will suffer from a ‘rejection of others’ barrier when high levels of group culture are imposed on employees. Analysis of survey data from 407 individuals working for organizations of different types and sizes in Serbia gives support to our main argument. We discuss implications of this for theory and management practice as well as policy implications for transition economies.