On the disruptive power of small-teams research

Recent studies have shown that research by small teams is more likely to lead to disruptive results than research by large teams. Disruptive research challenges established paradigms. This paper offers a possible theory to explain this paradox. We argue that individuals in possession of research ide...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scientometrics 2021, Vol.126 (1), p.117-133
Main Authors: Osório, António, Bornmann, Lutz
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bibliometrics
Computer Science
Incentives
Information Storage and Retrieval
Library Science
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Recent studies have shown that research by small teams is more likely to lead to disruptive results than research by large teams. Disruptive research challenges established paradigms. This paper offers a possible theory to explain this paradox. We argue that individuals in possession of research ideas with great disruptive potential have incentives to form small teams and compensate potential group weaknesses with a greater research effort rather than considering additional co-authors. Additional co-authors have the advantage of bringing more overall effort and expertise to the team, reducing technical difficulties, and increasing the chances of success and the potential value of the ideas. We show that individuals in possession of potentially disruptive research ideas prefer to keep teams as small as possible, because the resulting credits per co-author decrease as the value of the project is split among more co-authors.
ISSN:0138-9130
1588-2861
DOI:10.1007/s11192-020-03756-3