Given the rapid environmental changes resulting from new technological and market trends, work teams are increasingly recognized as a source of organizational innovation. A core challenge for team innovation is the successful translation of creative ideas into innovation through implementation. This study examines the tension between internal and external team behaviors that account for how teams translate their creative ideas into implemented innovation, particularly during the idea elaboration phase. Drawing on conservation of resource theory, this study proposes that motivational underpinnings of team idea generation predict team behaviors that directly affect team innovation implementation. Path analysis of a field survey data collected from 91 teams showed that teams that generated creative ideas proactively for internal interest effectively utilized internal resources via idea reflexivity in elaboration phase, but failed to acquire external resources for innovation implementation due to limited social reflexivity. By contrast, teams that generated ideas in response to external demands effectively acquired external resources via high social reflexivity when elaborate ideas but encountered diminished internal resources. This study offers new theoretical insights into the transition between idea generation and implementation by identifying tension between teams’ internal and external behaviors in idea elaboration stage as the core intermediating mechanism.