Teammate Invitation Networks: The Roles of Recommender Systems and Prior Collaboration in Team Assembly

Area of Science:

• Social Network Analysis
• Organizational Behavior
• Information Systems

Background:

• Team assembly relies on effective teammate invitation networks.
• Recommender systems offer a novel approach to facilitating team formation.
• Extends foundational models of team member selection (Hinds et al., 2000).

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the impact of online recommender systems on teammate invitation networks.
• To examine how online recommendations interact with established selection factors like prior collaboration, skills, and homophily.

Main Methods:

• Utilized exponential random graph modeling (ERGM).
• Analyzed two independent samples comprising 410 individuals across 63 teams and 1,048 invitations.
• Compared the predictive power of online recommendations against traditional factors.

Main Results:

• Online recommendations significantly predict teammate invitations, independent of prior collaboration, skills, or homophily.
• The influence of online recommendations is diminished when prior collaboration between potential teammates already exists.
• Findings were consistent across both study samples.

Conclusions:

• Online recommender systems are effective tools for technology-enabled team assembly.
• The integration of technology in team formation requires consideration of existing social dynamics, such as prior relationships.
• Highlights a network perspective on how technology shapes organizational structures.