Collective Exploration

Christo A. Pirinsky ()
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Christo A. Pirinsky: University of Central Florida, Business Administration and Finance

Chapter 11 in A Theory of Dynamic Preferences, 2026, pp 159-170 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Exploration is a collective effort. This chapter develops the idea that a group of individuals exhibits greater potential for exploration than a single individual. Exploration is about discovering something unique—a resource, a piece of a puzzle, or the missing link in a thought process. The laws of probability theory suggest that, as the number of independent opinions increases, a random observation in the sample will get arbitrarily close to the best outcome. The chapter refers to this property as the ingenuity of crowds. The ideas in this chapter have implications for the design of mechanisms fostering exploration in groups. According to the analysis, group exploration is determined by two factors. The first one is the ability of the group to generate diverse opinions. The second one is its ability to evaluate critically these opinions and identify the best ones. There is extensive evidence that groups across a wide range of domains tend to follow this strategy. The analysis also suggests that even small changes to the location or the setting of a creative process could exhibit a positive effect on the creative output of individuals and groups.

Keywords: Brainstorming; Creativity; Exploration; Ingenuity of circumstances; Ingenuity of crowds; Law of large numbers; Professionalization; Scientific discovery; Serendipity; Wisdom of crowds (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-032-13334-2_11

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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-032-13334-2_11

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