Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-lj6df Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T23:21:02.706Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A model of collaboration network formation with heterogeneous skills

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2016

KATHARINE A. ANDERSON Open the ORCID record for KATHARINE A. ANDERSON [Opens in a new window]
KATHARINE A. ANDERSON*
Affiliation:
Carnegie Mellon University, Tepper School of Business, 5000 Forbes Ave, Pittsburgh, PA, 15213, USA (e-mail: [email protected])
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Collaboration networks provide a method for examining the highly heterogeneous structure of collaborative communities. However, we still have limited theoretical understanding of how individual heterogeneity relates to network heterogeneity. The model presented here provides a framework linking an individual's skill set to her position in the collaboration network, and the distribution of skills in the population to the structure of the collaboration network as a whole. This model suggests that there is a non-trivial relationship between skills and network position: individuals with a useful combination of skills will have a disproportionate number of links in the network. Indeed, in some cases, an individual's degree is non-monotonic in the number of skills she has—an individual with very few skills may outperform an individual with many. Special cases of the model suggest that the degree distribution of the network will be skewed, even when the distribution of skills is uniform in the population. The degree distribution becomes more skewed as problems become more difficult, leading to a community dominated by a few high-degree superstars. This has striking implications for labor market outcomes in industries where production is largely the result of collaborative effort.

Keywords

theoretical modelsnetwork formationdegree distributioncollaborationscience of scienceindividual heterogeneityknowledge-based production
Type
Research Article
Information
Network Science , Volume 4 , Issue 2 , June 2016 , pp. 188 - 215
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Acedo, F. J., Barroso, C., Casanueva, C., & Galan, J. L. (2006). Co-authorship in management and organizational studies: An empirical and network analysis. Journal of Management Studies, 43 (5), 957–983.Google Scholar
Astebro, T., & Thompson, P. (2011). Entrepreneurs, Jacks of all trades or Hobos? Research Policy, 40 (5), 637–649.Google Scholar
Banerjee, A., Chandrasekhar, A. G., Duflo, E., & Jackson, M. O. (2013). The diffusion of microfinance. Science, 341, 1236498.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Barabasi, A.-L., Jeong, H., Neda, Z., Ravasz, E., Schubert, A., & Vicsek, T. (2002). Evolution of the social network of scientific collaborations. Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 311 (3–4), 590–614.Google Scholar
Barabási, A.-L., & Albert, R. (1999). Emergence of scaling in random networks. Science, 286 (5439), 509–512.Google Scholar
Bresnahan, T. F., Brynjolfsson, E., & Hitt, L. M. (2002). Information technology, workplace organization, and the demand for skilled labor: Firm-level evidence. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 117 (1), 339–376.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Calvó-Armengol, A. (2004). Job contact networks. Journal of Economic Theory, 115 (1), 191–206.Google Scholar
Calvó-Armengol, A., & Jackson, M. O. (2004). The effects of social networks on employment and inequality. American Economic Review, 94 (3), 426–454.Google Scholar
Carayol, N., & Roux, P. (2009). Knowledge flows and the geography of networks: A strategic model of small world formation. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 71 (2), 414–427.Google Scholar
DeMarzo, P. M., Vayanos, D., & Zwiebel, J. (2003). Persuasion bias, social influence, and uni-dimensional opinions. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 118 (3), 909–968.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Galeotti, A., Goyal, S., & Kamphorst, J. (2006). Network formation with heterogeneous players. Games and Economic Behavior, 54 (2), 353–372.Google Scholar
Gautier, P. A. (2002). Unemployment and search externalities in a model with heterogeneous jobs and workers. Economica, 69 (273), 21–40.Google Scholar
Gleiser, P., & Danon, L. (2003). Community Structure in Jazz. Advances in Complex Systems, 6 (4), 565–573.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Golub, B., & Jackson, M. O. (2010). Naive learning in social networks and the wisdom of crowds. American Economic Journal Microeconomics, 2 (1), 112–149.Google Scholar
Goyal, S., & Moraga-González, J. L. (2001). R&D networks. The Rand Journal of Economics, 32 (4), 686–707.Google Scholar
Goyal, S., Van Der Leij, M. J., & Moraga-Gonzalez, J. L. (2006). Economics: An emerging small world. Journal of Political Economy, 114 (2), 403–412.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grossman, J. W., & Ion, P. D. F. (1995). On a portion of the well-known collaboration graph. Congressus Numerantium, 108, 129–131.Google Scholar
Guimerà, R., Uzzi, B., Spiro, J., & Amaral, L. A. N. (2005). Team assembly mechanisms determine collaboration network structure and team performance. Science, 308 (5722), 697–702.Google Scholar
Hamilton, J., Thisse, J.-F., & Zenou, Y. (2000). Wage competition with heterogeneous workers and firms. Journal of Labor Economics, 18 (3), 453–472.Google Scholar
Hong, L., & Page, S. E. (2001). Problem solving by heterogeneous agents. Journal of Economic Theory, 97 (1), 123–163.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Iyer, B., Lee, C.-H., & Venkatraman, N. (2006). Managing in a small world ecosystem: Some lessons from the software sector. California Management Review, 48 (3), 28–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jackson, M. O. (2008). Social and economic networks. Princeton, NJ, USA: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Jackson, M. O., & Rogers, B. W. (2005). The economics of small worlds. Journal of the European Economic Association, 3 (2–3), 617–627.Google Scholar
Jackson, M. O., & Rogers, B. W. (2007). Relating network structure to diffusion properties through stochastic dominance. The be Journal of Theoretical Economics, 7 (1), 1–13.Google Scholar
Jackson, M. O., & Wolinsky, A. (1996). A strategic model of social and economic networks. Journal of Economic Theory, 71 (1), 44–74.Google Scholar
Jackson, M. O., & Yariv, L. (2007). Diffusion of behavior and equilibrium properties in network games. American Economic Review, 97 (2), 92–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jovanovic, B. (1994). Firm formation with heterogeneous management and labor skills. Small Business Economics, 6 (3), 185–191.Google Scholar
Laband, D. N., & Tollison, R. D. (2000). Intellectual collaboration. Journal of Political Economy, 108 (3), 632–662.Google Scholar
Lazear, E. P. (2004). Balanced skills and entrepreneurship. American Economic Review, 94 (2), 208–211.Google Scholar
Lazear, E. P. (2005). Entrepreneurship. Journal of Labor Economics, 23 (4), 649–680.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Menzel, H., & Katz, E. (1955). Social relations and innovation in the medical profession: The epidemiology of a new drug. The Public Opinion Quarterly, 19 (4), 337–352.Google Scholar
Moody, J. (2004). The structure of a social science collaboration network: Disciplinary cohesion from 1963 to 1999. American Sociological Review, 69 (2), 213–238.Google Scholar
Newman, M. E. J. (2001). Scientific collaboration networks. I. Network construction and fundamental results. Physical Review E, 64 (1), 1–8.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Newman, M. E. J. (2006). No Title. Physical Review E, 74, 036104.Google Scholar
Page, S. E. (2007). The difference: How the power of diversity creates better groups, firms, schools, and societies. Princeton, NJ, USA: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Phillips, K. W., Mannix, E. A., Neale, M. A., & Gruenfeld, D. H. (2004). Diverse groups and information sharing: The effects of congruent ties. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 40 (4), 497–510.Google Scholar
Polzer, J. T., Milton, L. P., & Swann, W. B. (2002). Capitalizing on diversity: Interpersonal congruence in small work groups. Administrative Science Quarterly, 47 (2), 296–324.Google Scholar
Powell, W. W., Koput, K. W., & Smith-Doerr, L. (1996). Interorganizational collaboration and the locus of innovation: Networks of learning in biotechnology. Administrative Science Quarterly, 41 (1), 116.Google Scholar
Rajan, R. G., & Wulf, J. (2006). The flattening firm: Evidence from panel data on the changing nature of corporate hierarchies. The Review of Economics and Statistics, 88 (4), 759–773.Google Scholar
Ramasco, J. J., Dorogovtsev, S. N., & Pastor-Satorras, R. (2007). Self-organization of collaboration networks. Physical Review E, 70 (3), 10.Google Scholar
Rivera, M. T., Soderstrom, S. B., & Uzzi, B. (2010). Dynamics of dyads in social networks: Assortative, relational, and proximity mechanisms. Annual Review of Sociology, 36, 91–115.Google Scholar
Rosen, S. (1981). The economics of superstars. American Economic Review, 71 (5), 845–858.Google Scholar
Rosen, S. (1982). Authority, control, and the distribution of earnings. The Bell Journal of Economics, 13 (2), 311–323.Google Scholar
Roy, A. D. (1951). Some thoughts on the distribution of earnings. Oxford Economic Papers, 3 (2), 135–146.Google Scholar
Shi, S. (2002). A directed search model of inequality with heterogeneous skills and skill-biased technology. The Review of Economic Studies, 69 (2), 467–491.Google Scholar
Spence, M. (1973). Job market signaling. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 87 (3), 355–374.Google Scholar
Thomas-Hunt, M. C., Ogden, T. Y., & Neale, M. A. (2003). Who's really sharing? Effects of social and expert status on knowledge exchange within groups. Management Science, 49 (4), 464–477.Google Scholar
Uzzi, B., & Spiro, J. (2005). Collaboration and creativity: The small world problem. American Journal of Sociology, 111 (2), 447–504.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: PDF

Anderson supplementary material

Anderson supplementary material

Download Anderson supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 253.5 KB