Team Network and Performance: Renovating a Classic Experiment to Identify Network Effects on Team Problem Solving

Abstract: Available research findings illustrate a contingent association between a team’s network and performance. For a basic task, the ideal network is organized around a central individual. For a complex task, the ideal network is more decentralized and democratic. The contingent network effect has been documented for structured problems, problems with defined solutions sets. When a solution set is ill-defined, the ideal team network is unknown. To solve an unstructured problem, team members must identify and evaluate a diverse set of solutions. A team working in a decentralized network could excel at evaluating solutions, but fail to consider enough solutions, while a team working in a centralized network could discover better solutions, but struggle to evaluate their relative merits. In each case, the team could end up selecting and implementing an inferior solution to the assigned problem. It is unclear which of these suboptimal outcomes is more likely to occur and therefore which team network should be preferred. We analyze the performance of seventy-seven teams working on an unstructured problem. Teams are randomly assigned to different network conditions. Our research findings indicate centralized teams do better than decentralized teams. We also estimate the performance of teams working in networks that combine elements of centralized and decentralized networks. Teams that combine both network features are the best teams.