Effects of Network Connectivity and Functional Diversity Distribution on Human Collective Ideation

TL;DR

This study investigates how network structure and diversity distribution influence collective idea generation, revealing that clustering promotes diversity while randomness enhances idea utility, with connectivity affecting experience but not performance.

Contribution

It provides empirical evidence on the interaction between network topology, diversity, and collective ideation, highlighting conditions that optimize idea diversity and utility.

Findings

Clustered networks promote idea diversity.

Random diversity distribution yields higher utility ideas.

Higher connectivity improves individual experience but not collective outcomes.

Abstract

Human collective tasks in teams and organizations increasingly require participation of members with diverse backgrounds working in networked social environments. However, little is known about how network structure and the functional diversity of member backgrounds would interact with each other and affect collective processes. Here we conducted three sets of human-subject experiments which involved 617 university students who collaborated anonymously in a collective ideation task on a custom-made online social network platform. We found that spatially clustered collectives with assortative background distribution tended to explore more diverse ideas than in other conditions, whereas collectives with random background distribution consistently generated ideas with the highest utility. We also found that higher network connectivity may improve individuals' overall experience but may not improve the collective performance regarding idea generation, idea diversity, and final idea quality.