In creative industries, individual creators often coalesce into temporary design teams to develop new products. These teams are different from traditional project teams, where employees are typically assigned and subject to externally imposed structure and control by an organization. Such differences can affect the way teams deliver creative offerings, particularly how they pursue efficiency and innovation. This study focuses on board game design teams and investigates the mechanisms behind how the design teams efficiently utilize resources to achieve game innovation. We draw on the coordination theory and knowledge-sourcing perspective and apply empirically grounded analytical methods to data retrieved from BoardGameGeek.com. We extend our understanding of the trade-off between efficiency and innovation to the context of design teams and clarify the roles of two key team characteristics at the heart of this trade-off: staff and structure. This research adds a crucial lens of operational efficiency to the prevailing focus on innovation and novelty in creative industries and offers insights into the mechanisms underlying the relationships between team characteristics and performance trade-off. The findings provide managerial implications for team design and team operations in settings without organizational constraints or intervention.
