Lone Inventors as Source of Breakthroughs: Myth or Reality?
Lone Inventors as Source of Breakthroughs: Myth or Reality?
复制标题
DOI：
10.2139/ssrn.1299064
复制
发表时间：
2009-06
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Jasjit Singh;L. Fleming
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Jasjit Singh;L. Fleming
孤独的发明家是更有可能还是更少可能发明突破？最近的研究试图通过考虑创造性成果分布的方差来解决这个问题。它隐含地假设了两个尾部的对称增厚或变薄，即，更大的突破概率是以更大的失败概率为代价的。相比之下，我们认为合作在两个极端可能产生相反的效果：它降低了非常差的结果的概率---因为更严格的选择过程---同时增加了非常成功的结果的概率---因为创造性搜索中有更大的重组机会。对50多万项专利发明的分析支持了这些论点：单独工作的个人，特别是那些没有加入组织的人，不太可能取得突破，更有可能发明出特别糟糕的结果。分位数回归表明，这种影响不仅仅是向上的均值漂移。我们发现，部分中介的合作效果的极端结果的团队成员的技术经验的多样性和团队成员的外部协作网络的大小。支持我们的元论点，即分别检查分布的每个尾部的重要性，相对于外部网络的影响，经验多样性有助于减少糟糕的结果，而不是帮助创造突破。
Are lone inventors more or less likely to invent breakthroughs? Recent research has attempted to resolve this question by considering the variance of creative outcome distributions. It has implicitly assumed a symmetric thickening or thinning of both tails, i.e., that a greater probability of breakthroughs comes at the cost of a greater probability of failures. In contrast, we propose that collaboration can have opposite effects at the two extremes: it reduces the probability of very poor outcomes---because of more rigorous selection processes---while simultaneously increasing the probability of extremely successful outcomes---because of greater recombinant opportunity in creative search. Analysis of over half a million patented inventions supports these arguments: Individuals working alone, especially those without affiliation to organizations, are less likely to achieve breakthroughs and more likely to invent particularly poor outcomes. Quantile regressions demonstrate that the effect is more than an upward mean shift. We find partial mediation of the effect of collaboration on extreme outcomes by the diversity of technical experience of team members and by the size of team members' external collaboration networks. Supporting our meta-argument for the importance of examining each tail of the distribution separately, experience diversity helps trim poor outcomes significantly more than it helps create breakthroughs, relative to the effect of external networks.