Introduction:

Organisations utilise team-based structures for coordinating work and completing projects. Teams can be described as a gathering of individuals in the fulfilment of a task, who are interdependent and have a shared responsibility for its outcome. Its members perceive themselves as part of the team. A special type of team that is widespread in organisations is a project team. Project teams commonly exist on a temporary basis and produce unique outcomes like novel products, services or information systems. Project work mainly relates to new, unstructured tasks without a definite solution. Consequently, work on project tasks requires the application of knowledge and expertise to a considerable extent. One sector taking as its main purpose the provision of knowledge about change is knowledge intensive business services (KIBS). KIBS offer specialist knowledge to other organisations in a rapidly changing, uncertain, and internationally oriented economic environment. Particularly in consultancies, the employees have to deal with complex problem situations in order to serve the diversity of customer needs and preferences. Consultants are "people whose work is primarily intellectual and non-routine in nature, and which involves the utilisation and creation of knowledge". Consultants work in project teams to benefit from multiple perspectives. As diversity entails a potential to engender a more careful consideration of the task at hand and to enhance performance, consultancies hire (and try to benefit from) consultants with different educational, social, and cultural backgrounds. According to Wood (2002) "innovation has become the clarion call of modern economic management" (p. 1). This orientation towards a culture of innovation has given rise to economic sectors – such as consultancies – that are oriented toward supporting change. To fulfil the assignment of stimulating a culture of innovation at the client, consultancies are under pressure to achieve innovative solutions. For that reason, innovative behaviour is required of consultants in order to find appropriate solutions for a problem and to develop innovative strategies for their clients. Diversity in teams provides the potential to enhance innovative behaviour when dealing with complex tasks, but it also carries risks for team performance. A Delphi study was conducted to identify (1) according to experts, what aspects facilitate innovative behaviour in consulting teams and (2) which of these identified performance-related aspects are also useful for dealing with diversity in consulting teams.